Catching the Solitary Cloud
by Distance-0
Summary: Just coming to say for the record, I went to Namimori for a peaceful life. So becoming my cousin's external adviser? That's not the plan. Being bullied by Reborn? Also not the plan. And meeting that awful Hibari? Now that was definitely not the plan! OC
1. Prologue

**Prologue: Of Wimps and Bullies and the Quiet Vigilante in the Corner of the Room**

_A/N: Hi y'all, sorry I took so long to return! This is a revised version of The Prologue from the original version, so I hope it's a little better than the first one. I do plan to revise the first few chapters of the story so look forward to that. As for the later chapters, idk how long that's gonna take in all honesty. But I'll let you know when I get there. _

_By the way, this is not by a long shot, but if I manage to get 1,000 reviews on my fanfiction, then I'll post up this chapter in illustrated video, if not animated format on YouTube. So keep that in mind yeah? ;) _

_Alright y'all, have fun reading, and as always, thank you for your constant support!_

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

Once upon a not so distant time, in a land not too far away, there lived a happy couple who gave birth to a health baby girl. The couple loved their daughter, but because of their occupation – which required a extensive amount of traveling, they could not provide her with a permanent place to live for any given length of time. So the girl grew into a cultured child, influenced by a great variety of people and things.

At the age of five, during a half year stay in France, she fell into the care of a cynical and sardonic man named, Gustave. At the end of which she became such a terrifying reflection of the man in mindset and attitude that her parents decided to ship her off to a small Japanese town, in hopes that the quiet life would revive some childish innocence.

It was there that she met her cousin for the first time.

Her first impression was that he had been quite small, a little bit shorter than herself, timid, and a major crybaby. He had hid peaking behind her aunt's legs as they were introduced, despite the woman's urgings for him to come out. As a result, the first sentence the girl spoke to him was, "you're lame". Which caused him to break out in an onslaught of tears. And thus further served to create for her, an overall mislead opinion that pegged all little boys as over-emotional sissies.

It was an opinion that stuck with her in the following months until a fateful encounter with a second impressionable little boy that very same year dispelled the notion.

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

It all started on a bright, warm Sunday morning, around two and a half months into her stay. She had been out in the yard that morning, along with her cousin and uncle. A bright red ball in the yard had caught her attention earlier that morning, so she had gone out with every intention to start a game with it.

Her cousin followed closely behind. He had developed a strange habit of shadowing her, and she had no choice but to play with him. After all one can't very well play games alone. Although, so far, the only game he had been able to successfully conduct without crying or complaining had been "house". It wasn't that she had much against playing pretend, of course, she was, after all, still a little girl. However one does get sick of the same game if played consecutively for days on end.

"Catch" had always been a special favorite game for her, since she had always been an athletic and coordinated child. Matching the level of intensity provided by the adults (be it her father, bodyguard, or Gustave) had never been much of an issue. though she soon found that trying to match the level of her cousin was a frightening challenge.

He was terrible.

If he was not actively running from the ball, he was falling down trying to get away from it. In the end, she had to threaten to leave him in order to get him to agree to trying catching the ball once. But that was not the best idea either.

She had heaved the ball towards the clear blue sky and shouted for him to catch it, but when he took some timid steps towards the falling ball, he tripped over his own feet and fell face forward. Shortly after the ball landed on his head. So of course, he started to cry.

At this, the girl's uncle, a tough muscular man named, Iemitsu, stepped down from the porch and laughed in a good-natured manner.

"Get up, Tsuna!" He urged his son, "it's not good for a boy to cry so much!"

Of course, that was small comfort to a boy who had just fallen on his face, so Tsuna began to cry even harder.

Iemitsu studied his son.

When it became apparent that time lapse was not going to stop his son from crying, the man walked up to the boy and steadied him to his feet. "Hmm, you need to toughen up, Tsuna," he boomed in his normal cheery manner as he dusted off the boy, "I know! How about learning self defense? For the both of you! Isn't that a great idea, Suzune?"

The girl started, she had not expected to be included in the conversation. "Me too?"

"Sure you too!" Her uncle grinned, "a young girl like you should learn to protect your self!"

She made a face, "but I'm not a wimp uncle, I'm already tough! Not a crybaby like Tsuna-nii." In the background, her cousin restarted his engines and wailed like a siren at the insult, but she ignored him.

Iemitsu laughed. "It's not about who's a crybaby and who's not, little girl! It's about learning to protect yourself and gaining discipline."

It was a sensible enough explanation, but the girl was not convinced.

"I'm not going!" She declared with an air of finality, and walked from the yard, leaving her uncle to deal with his crying son.

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

About two days later, saw the child sitting in seiza style on the hard wooden floor of the dojo, listening to the instructor preach about discipline. Her declaration had been very much completely vetoed, though she was infinitely more upset about the fact that she had ended up in the same class as her cousin.

It was a nice day out there and she wanted more than anything than to play outside, but alas she was stuck. Her feet and knees were hurting though she refused to make a peep. Her determination to prove that she was made of tougher stuff than the rest of the children made sure of that she admitted no sign of weakness.

Perhaps it was during those moments that she first noticed the dark haired child sitting in an isolated corner of the room. He gave off an aura so drastically different from her cousin that the girl could not help but stare. For the first time since she arrived in Japan, her notion of little boys being wimpy creatures was shaken.

He was not paying attention to the teacher, anyone, or anything in particular as far as she could tell. His eyes were trained to a spot on the floor in front of him and his face was a complete blank. In fact, his lack of proper apparel made her wonder if he even belonged in the class at all.

A moment passed before he felt her stare and looked up. His eyes met her gaze with a cold unblinking glint. It was a little frightening, in all honesty, though she had never been one to back down from a challenge. So she held his gaze with a stubborn determination until he looked away with a disinterested yawn.

Break was announced just moments after and her interest in the boy was immediately replaced by a rush of relief. She stood eagerly, joints cracking as she stretched. Karate, she decided then, was not her calling. Too tiring, and too sedentary. She had been juggling these thoughts with notions of ditching class altogether when her cousin's shrieks blasted her eardrums.

"Tsuna-nii, let go!" She demanded as she struggled to push her crying cousin away. He had tackled her from behind, sobbing up a storm as he clutched her arm, refusing to let go.

"Sissy, hiding behind a girl," a high pitched voice taunted. So the girl turned her attention from the crying boy, to the approaching threat. A overly thin boy, around her height, walked up shadowed two others sneering individuals.

"So what are you going to do next, huh, no-good Tsuna?" The stick figure continued, laughing, "run home to your mommy? What are you even doing in this class? No matter how hard you try, you'll still be no-good Tsuna!"

She felt a deadly sort of fire spark within her, accompanied by a dire black urge to throw the kid on the ground and punch him till he learned his lesson. But before she had a chance to throw her plans into action, a figure came up from behind her.

He had moved so silently that she did not hear him until he spoke standing beside her. She almost jumped in surprise, but the raven-haired boy retained a cool demeanor.

"Too noisy. If you make anymore noise, I'll bite you to death."

Bite you to death? That was a bit of an odd catch phrase. She had never heard anyone say such a thing before. Apparently, neither had the bully.

"Bite me to death?" He commented snobbishly, "that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! Can't you think of anything cooler?"

There was no response from the other except a slight narrow of his eyes, and a slight sadistic smirk that decorated his face.

"Who the heck are you anyway?" The bully continued, slightly unsettled by the lack of reaction, "wanna get beat up you twit?"

Again, nothing.

Finally, the boy lost his patience and shouted, "get him" to his friends. They charged at the silent boy, fists raised and yelling. The stoic boy ducked so fast that the girl nearly missed it. And before she, or anyone had realized what happened, the boy had jammed his elbow into the bully's stomach.

The victim immediately fell onto the floor, coughing and crying in pain. Upon seeing this, the other two stopped their advances in terror.

Tsuna, of course, fell into hysterics at the sight of violence, though the girl stood immobile. Staring in awe at the scene that had unfolded.

"Pathetic." The victor said as he stalked from the room. The little girl watched him exit, impressed and inspired. One day she would become stronger than he was, that was what she vowed.

The end...

…

Just kidding. That was more like, the beginning of everything. Oh, and by the way, you know that little girl in the story? That was me.

And the stoic boy? Guess which jerk he turned out to be?


	2. Suzune, the Sound of The Bells

**A/N: Sup people, I'm back. And yes, as you've noticed, I've deleted most of the chapters. Now before you hunt me down and murder me, listen to my reasoning. Lately, I'm sure you have all been very peeved by my lack of updates. I mean, other than college, I found that starting things up again has become increasingly difficult. So I've decided to start all over from the beginning and upgrade my story a bit. Now before you start complaining about having to read everything over again. Let me tell you, not everything will be the same. I will be adding stuff, taking out stuff. Developing some relationships in depth, etc. Suzune will be still the external adviser and the pairing will still be OCxHibari, but some stuff will change. Soooo, there you have it. Please enjoy the newly upgraded version of Suzune, the Sound of the Bells, and review afterwards!**

**Chapter Two: Suzune, The Sound of the Bells **

"Sweetie, for heaven's sake, please fix your bangs," Mom tucked a stray strand of faded ginger hair behind her ear and leaned over to hug me.

I rolled my eyes. Again with the bangs. I didn't see what the point to fixing them was, they were going to be messed up again anyways. This I promptly told her, but she just shook her head stubbornly and reached for me. Her fingers took hold before I could duck away. "I will not have your hair in that jumbled disarray when you present yourself to your Aunt Nana for the first time in seven years. I can't imagine what she would have thought had she seen you in that mangy mane of yours two days ago."

At this, I rolled my eyes again. Actually, knowing Nana, she wouldn't have cared less if I had grown a third eye or a second head. She was just that kind of person. But I bit my tongue on that one.

We looked almost nothing alike, my mother and I. Being of Italian, French, and Irish descent, my mother was a woman of extraordinary beauty, even by Western standards. Defined by her long flowing ginger hair, and shining green deep set eyes, she just stood out in a crowd. There was no way your eyes could be on anyone else the moment she walked into a room.

In comparison, I had always been unspeakably plain. Taking with me, my father's boring brown eyes instead of my mother's shining green orbs. Furthermore, I had a head of pale sandy mane that always seemed to curl at the end, both inwards and outwards. Don't even ask where I got them from. I have no idea, no one else in my family had a color like that. Maybe I'm adopted or something.

I struggled out of my mother's grasp and danced away before she could reach for me again. "I'll fix it myself, mom," I protested, and began patting down my bangs roughly. That was another difference we had. She cared too much about my appearance, and I, not much at all. But she had insisted that I receive a proper makeover since I decided to live in Japan with my Aunt and Uncle, so I had no choice but to sit through hours of trimming and combing and styling. Which, by the way, I had handled very calmly and maturely. Whatever the barber and my mother claims about the incident are all lies. Don't believe them.

Anyways, after a long intense frown at my general direction, my mother seemed to give up trying to beautify me. Instead she waved me over, so I came cautiously, stopping just beyond her range of attack.

"Are you sure you want to do this, sweetie?" She asked for the fifth time today, "you could stay, you know. With us." Her tone had been so sad and her eyes so pleading that I almost wavered in my resolve. Almost. But I had gone too far to be so half-baked about it now.

"We've been through this before me," I answered. And we had. For hours on end last week, we had discussed this until finally, an agreement was reached. I was not about to let those hours I had spent for this go to waste. I had even missed the latest episode of _The Walking Dead_ for it. "I'm sick and tired of being dragged around by you guys. I want a normal life. You know, one that doesn't require so much moving around. I practically live at the airport!" To prove my point, I gestured at my surroundings. It was another airport. I know, right? Big surprise.

"But you love LA," my mother refused to give up, "and we've been here for nearly three years now! That counts as stability, doesn't it?"

I sighed and let go of the handle of my suitcase. It hadn't occurred to me that I had been clutching it defensively. "Yes, until you guys decided that we were going back to Italy. Speaking of which, Dad already left right?" I heaved another sigh, he didn't even bother saying goodbye.

Mom bit her lip, troubled over how to pacify me. "Yes, your father left at midnight on a private jet. He wanted to see you off darling, but it really was an emergency."

It didn't work. "Like what?" I grunted peevishly, knowing the answer even before it left her mouth. Of course, if anything went down in Italy, the Master would be involved. The Master was a man by the name of Timoteo, I think. I'm not too sure because no one ever calls him that. He's part of the Mafia, and again, this was something I hypothesized. I was always told that he had been a business man, but one time, the wind blow up his suit and I could have sworn I saw a gun and a couple of hand grenades on his belt. So it was either he was part of some underground Mafia business, or he was going through some aggressive negotiations in his business meetings. Either way, I didn't want to find out. He had always been a kindly old man, but I don't know, the nicest ones almost always turn out to be the most psychotic.

And sure enough, his title was the first sounds she uttered. "The master," she had begun when I snorted, crossing my arms to show my displeasure. Mom frowned.

"Suzune," She rebuked me, and I looked at her warily. "You can't be like this. The Master was in … an accident, you must understand that. He was badly injured. Your father had to go and resolve the matter."

She was withholding information. I could tell by the way she avoided eye contact with me completely. She always did that when she tries to hide things from me. But I wasn't about to let this one slide just yet.

"What kind of accident?" I pushed. Maybe if I get enough information from her, I could play it off like I knew what was going on to Uncle Iemitsu, so he would tell me. I figured, if my father worked with the Master, chances are, my Uncle would too.

"There was… a dispute, over some sort of inheritance rights to a valuable heirloom, I think," the last part she threw in for my benefit. There was no way she could have not been certain over what was going on. She and Dad spent the entire night talking the day before yesterday; they were being discreet though so I couldn't catch anything beyond muffled voices. But I let it go for now. It was pretty clear that it was all she was willing to risk telling me.

"Sure Mom, whatever you say," I relented and she looked relieved. "Tell the Master I send my best wishes and love, and tell Dad I said bye, okay? I've got to go check in soon, so I'll see you later." I took my suitcase and stepped away from her before she decided she wanted to kidnap me to accompany her to Italy after all.

Mom hesitated and gave me a brave smile. "Alright, darling, have fun. Send Nana our love. We'll visit soon."

"Okay Mom, take care!" I nodded, walking away.

She didn't stop talking. "Be safe! Don't walk around by yourself at night!"

I gave an exasperated smile over my shoulder, "got it mom, you should probably go home and pack for Italy now."

"Eat your vegetables and go to bed on time!"

Okay, now she was going too far. People were beginning to stare. As coolly as possible, I mustered up my remaining dignity and walked away, pretending that it was someone else Mom was calling to. Thankfully I got up the escalator and around the corner before she could remind me to brush my teeth at night.

I swear sometimes, she gets a kick out of doing this.

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

Guess this is the part where I introduce myself. The surname is Sawada. Sawada Suzune. That's pronounced Su-zu-neh, by the way, please don't make the mistake of calling me Su-zune. It annoys the heck out of me. It means "bell sound" in Japanese, so I kinda like it. I've gotten a lot of things though, Bells, Suzie, Zune, Monkey (don't ask), or you could be a rebel like my mom and call me "Suzu". It doesn't really matter, whatever works for you, works for me.

I'm fourteen this year, but let me tell you, for a person living the way the way I do, fourteen feels almost like forty one. Like I mentioned to mom, life for me is really hectic, tiresome, unstable, stuff like that. Imagine being dragged around your whole life, everywhere around the world. Sure it may seem cool at first, I mean, Italy, France, England, the States, you name it, and I've been there at least once. But then at some point, when you realize that your entire life can be fitted into a single suitcase, and you're always the new kid everywhere, it gets kinda sad. Besides, whereas most people picture "home" as some kind of house, maybe an apartment, I see an airport, or maybe a hotel.

I guess for the most part, my parents tried to compensate my lack of stability by giving me the best of educations and getting me mostly whatever I want (yeah, I know what you're thinking, spoiled little rich girl, and you know dude, you're just jealous). Which, for the most part, works out nicely in my favor, except when they start going over the top with everything. I mean, there's the regular stuff like, math, languages, science, and history. Along with complementary stuff like piano and violin and archery, but there were also things like martial arts, shooting guns, hacking into computers and, you're gonna love this, disarming bombs. I mean, what kind of parents teaches their kid to disarm bombs? What do they think I'll ever use that for?

I think at one point, I tried asking them about it, but they just got all defensive and muttered something about being well rounded and other excuses that I can't really remember. Then Mom sent me into my hotel room to play and exchanged a strange look with Dad.

You know what though? There's more. There came a point in my life when my parents became super weird. I mean, they were already pretty weird before, but around that time, the time when I was eleven, they became extra weird. It was around that time that they brought me to Italy a lot and even made me stand before the Master and the council once. After that they started saying how I was going to become someone very special one day, and that I was going to lead great people and do great things. And when I told them I wanted to be a zoologist instead, they just gave me a strange look and shook their heads.

So at age fourteen, I decided that, for the sake of my sanity, I had to settle down and get away from this hectic lifestyle. And that was how I ended up here, on a plane, leaving the United States and on my way to Japan to live with my Uncle, Aunt, and Cousin. Finally on my way to a peaceful and normal life, or so I had thought. Of course, if I had known what I would be getting myself into, I would have probably caught the next plane back to the States, or maybe escape with a parachute. But, of course, I knew nothing. So instead I drifted off in my comfortable seat, dreaming of a normal, happy life as I was carried off into the mouth of the mother of all messes.

I guess that's what you call irony, right?

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

**Ending note: **

**Sooooo, I hope you enjoyed that. If not, that's fine. Leave a review and tell me what to work on. Hehe, next chapter should be out in a heartbeat ;) Look for it soon!**


	3. Namimori

**Author's Note? Yeah. I do have some pretty IMPORTANT ISSUES TO ADDRESS. So PLEASE READ.**

**So anyways, to quickly address a few things, since you're probably sick of hearing from me. First of all, to (and I'm sorry I have no idea what else to address you by) "Guest" who submitted a review on July fourth for chapter one. And actually for all of you readers out there. I do apologize again for disappointing you for deleting the story. I won't explain my reasoning again (see AN chapter 1), but I will say that there are stuff in my story that I wish to improve and stuff I wish to delete, so I did what I did. But rest assured that the main plot and character development will remain relatively the same as before. **

**However, there is one thing that I do have to stress and clarify since I do see how everyone can misjudge this. I am not doing this to accumulate reviews. The amount of numbers does not really matter to me. The reason I wanted reviews in the first place, is for constructive criticism, which is why at this point, I will publicly announce that reviews for this story is NOT something I am asking for.**

_**Hearing from you all in reviews is a privilege and a luxury for me, but give it to me only if I need constructive criticism or if I truly deserve it. **_

**For my part, I just want you to read it and enjoy it. At this point, I am writing because I enjoy writing and because with all the kind support I've received for this story in the past, this is a return gesture of appreciation for all my previous readers. Who, by the way, I can't thank enough for all their kind support over the years.**

**And please be reassured that until I reach the point where I have stopped last time, the chapters will be rewritten at a fast pace. You will probably be bombarded with updates daily, so don't worry about a slow update.**

**Anyways, I'm done yapping for tonight. It's two forty-five. Time for bed.**

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

**Chapter Two: Namimori**

"Here you are miss, Namimori." The sun will shining brightly overhead when the cab driver announced this. I rubbed my eyes and blinked. I had a strange dream about when I was little. It was something about a Karate class I had taken with with Tsuna-nii years and years ago. In the dream, Tsuna-nii and I were getting chased by a strange monkey telling us that he was going to bite us to death. It was kinda weird.

The surrounding scenery had not changed much. It was pleasant, peaceful, just the way I remembered it to be. I smiled feeling happy and nostalgic.

"You sure you don't want me to drive ya all the way, lady?" The cab driver asked.

I smiled at him, "it's ok, I know the way. I want to walk."

"Ok..." He said in an uncertain voice as he watched me lug out my suitcase.

"Thanks mister." I waved at him before walking off.

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

The morning was still rather young and the air was still mixed with the fresh scent of the cool of the morning. There were some changes here and there, I think, but I knew my surroundings well enough. After all, I had once lived here with my Aunt and Uncle for about a year and a half in my younger years, so finding my way around did not prove to be much of a challenge. I inhaled deeply and steadied myself. Truth be told, I was, inexplicably, a little nervous.

_Okay, _I told myself lightly, _new life, fresh start, you're going to be fine._

I could not have been more wrong. In fact, the only thing I seem to hit with a slight bit of accuracy would be the fact that I would have a fresh start. Though not in the way I had expected it to be.

I reached the Sawada residence probably around noon as the sun was high overhead. It was exactly the way I remembered it. Except, the yard that I had played in, which had once seemed so vast to my childish eyes, suddenly looked rather small. It brought about a bittersweet pang. I allowed myself a thin smile and entered the yard. But I had not gotten very far when the door abruptly swung open with a loud bang.

Something brown with an apron flew towards my direction. There was a cry, "Suzu-Chan!" and my Aunt dived at me, ladle in hand. She had practically thrown the door off its hinges in her excitement. I thought I saw it sway downwards before she slammed into me. Her ladle struck the back of my head with a painful thud and I made a strange involuntary noise somewhere between a squeal of pain and an "oof". She didn't seem to catch my discomfort.

"It's been a while Nana-San." I choked out, still smothered by her pink apron. I don't know why, but I've never actually addressed her as "obaa-san", she never protested when I first called her "Nana-San", so I just stuck with it.

She let me go, and I struggled to refill my lungs with air. "Oh my, look at you!" She inspected me all over as I tried to breathe, "you've grown since I last saw you."

I have no idea why adults always say that. It's been nine years, of course I've grown. Though, I knew she meant it kindly so I just nodded awkwardly instead.

"You must be tired. Do you want something to eat?" She smiled as she ushered me inside the house, smile as bright as the sun.

"No, I ate on the plane." I could not help but smile back, "though I do miss your excellent cooking." It was the truth.

"Really?" She beamed and clapped her hands together, I had to duck out of the way as the ladle swung past my face. "Well, I'll be sure to make you something delicious for dinner then!"

"Thanks Nana-San. Is Tsuna-nii at school already?" I asked, inspecting around the house. There were more shoes at the door than I remembered. Some of them extremely small, which was rather odd since I was pretty certain Tsuna-nii probably doesn't have tiny baby feet anymore. But then again, I haven't seen the boy in seven years, so who knows, maybe he has some rare foot disorder. Either that, or Nana-san just never stored them away, but I doubted that was the case.

"Tsu-Kun just left for school, you missed him by a few minutes." Nana replied, "He'll be back later this afternoon."

This afternoon, huh? Did I feel like waiting that long? I took a moment to consider. Truth be told, I had really been looking forward to seeing him again after all these years. We haven't had very many chances to communicate, or even if we did, neither of us bothered.

"Then I'll catch up to him! You didn't tell him anything did you, Nana San?"

I had specifically requested to both my Aunt and Uncle multiple times on the phone that they not tell Tsuna-nii anything about my plans. I just had to savor the moment myself, see the surprised look on his face. It's gonna be pretty sweet.

"No, you asked me not to right?" Nana smiled knowingly.

I grinned, sometimes, I'm really glad I have an aunt like her. "Thanks Nana-San, I'll give him a big surprise then! "

"Are you sure?" Nana frowned, pensive and concerned, "you don't have to go now, aren't you tired?"

"I'm fine!" I called out behind me, already making a dash for the door. I had done nothing but sleep on the plane anyways, so there was really no way I was tired. If anything, I'm in sore need of a good run. Besides, I wasn't going to pass out on an opportunity to scare the crap out of my dear, dear cousin. Ha! This is gonna be good!

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

My foot pounded the pavement as I charged ahead. I was a pretty fast runner, though the only problem was, about eight or nine minutes into my hurried trip, I seemed to recall that I had no idea where the middle school was located. When I came to stay, I didn't even get to go to the elementary school for that long. It took me another thirty minutes and three different people to find the big yellow buildings in an unimpressive school yard. Which, in itself, had been a rather frustrating endeavour since the first two people I had asked were a couple of seniors who misheard me and directed me to some empty lot near the park instead. The next person I ran into turned out to be a police, which was fine, except he kept insisting that I had been ditching. It took me a good while to get that all cleared out.

The bell rang had clearly rung as I neared the place as the yard was nearly empty save for a couple of stragglers. Several kids were trying their luck at the gate, obviously nervous about taking a step in. I thought that was a little strange. From the way they were acting, you'd think someone was going to jump out and eat them or something.

But it was something I could work with. "I should be able to blend in," I murmured to myself and tried to look as casual as possible as I neared the gate. Then a voice, a smooth baritone voice caught my attention.

"You guys are all late."

I turned to see a raven haired boy standing at the gate. His stance was casual as he strolled towards the terrified looking students. His black coat that hung on his shoulder swayed in the gentle breeze. On his sleeve was a piece of red cloth that had the word prefect etched in yellow letters. There was something about his demeanor and the way he talked that seemed really familiar. I had a feeling that I met him somewhere before, though I couldn't put my finger on it. Crap, I'm getting off track, wasn't I supposed to be sneaking into the school? Anyhow, looking at the other kids, sneaking through this area didn't seem like such a brilliant plan. But I was in luck. The guy seemed preoccupied with the other kids so I decided to climb the wall instead.

The climbing part was a piece of cake of course, but as I got to the top and was about to jump off I heard the same baritone voice say, "You."

Crap. Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap. Maybe if I close my eyes and pretend not to see him, he won't notice me.

It didn't really work. Instead, I could almost feel someone's gaze drilling holes at me. And I must have looked ridiculous too. I had been trying to be discreet, so I had my stomach pressed against the top of the wall, with one leg swung over onto the other side. Slowly opening one eye, I saw indeed that he was now staring at me. His deep blue, or maybe even gray, eyes did not seem very welcoming. Or very friendly for that matter, so I guess it was safe to assume that he wasn't going to talk to me about how nice the weather was today.

I sat up and tried to look as casual as possible. "Hey... nice weather we're having," I smiled awkwardly as I shook the bangs out of my eyes. Dang it, Mom, I feel like a bearded collie with these. This is so not good for a first impression.

The prefect got right down to business. "What are you doing on the wall?" he asked coolly. His eyes narrowed into dangerous slits as he observed me. Something told me he wouldn't exactly enjoy sarcasm.

"Uhh..." I replied lamely. Okay, I need an excuse, what excuse do I use?

As I was pondering, he spoke again, "Why are you not wearing our uniform?"

Huh? Uniform? Okay, apparently, Mister Prefect here thought I was a student. I guess I kinda do look like a kid that would go here. So why don't I just play along?

"Umm, yeah, about that, I was passing by the river today and saw an old lady drowning. So being the hero that I was, I bravely dived in to save her. My uniform got soaked so she lent me her granddaughter's clothes," I chattered, the story flowed smoothly through my mouth. I had a funny friend named Jonathan in the US who used that story every time he was late to class. The teachers never bought it, but at least it made for a good joke. "Besides, the gate seemed a little crowded and I wanted to get to class so I decided to take another route instead. You know what they say about life giving you lemons, right?"

"In other words you were avoiding me."

Oh, brilliant job, Detective Holmes, how long did it take you to figure that one out? Why else would I go out on my way to climb a wall?

Not that I said that, of course. So instead, I just replied with, "err...". The wall was getting stiff and uncomfortable and I wanted to leave. But at this point it almost felt like the school grounds held some sort of landmine that I didn't want to touch. Things didn't look too swell, maybe I should take off and come back later.

"You need to be punished," the prefect stated plainly and started towards me, eyes darkened.

Oh wonderful, I didn't even officially enroll yet and I was already getting detention? Leave it to me to pull a stunt like that.

But for some reason, my idea of "punishment" didn't exactly match his, because from behind him, several gangster looking guys with outrageously hilarious Elvis hair styles stepped forward cracking their knuckles.

"Those that misbehave shall be punished," One of the Elvis uglies said.

So what are you gonna do? Sing to me? But I didn't say that either. Kinda wish I had though. That would have been funny.

They were looking to fight. That much was obvious. I didn't really want to get mixed up with any trouble on my first day, but I never run from a fight. Okay, maybe I do, sometimes, rarely but still. I figured if I played around for a bit, it should be fine, as long as the teacher isn't there and I wasn't the one who threw the first punch. I hopped down lightly from the wall and smiled.

"Punished?" I raised my eyebrows, "I'll have you know that I will subject to no such thing until I get my lawyer."

The Elvis gangsters smirked in a superior manner, as if I said something extremely dumb, and came charging. A little slow for my taste though. I crouched and as the first guy neared and threw his punch at me, I ducked swiftly and stepped past him. Straight into the gang of prefects. This threw them off guard, but another ugly quickly recovered his wits enough to kicked at me. He was aiming too far right, I leaned left and felt his kick fly past me.

I ran around him and the others came at me at once. One from the right and one from the left. The right one clearly raised his fist for a punch and the left was preparing a kick. I would have ducked onto the ground, but that would have given them the advantage point afterwards. Luckily, we were quite close to a tree and a low branch had been hanging overhead, so at the last second, I jumped up and grabbed it. Hauling myself upwards, I looked down just in time to see the looks of surprise on their faces as their attacks slammed into each other. I'm probably not going to describe what happened in specifics, because this is rated T and the results don't really categorize as rated T material.

I let go of the branch then and looked around. Another batch of uglies was coming at me. Directly at me. I dodged the one that was a little faster than the rest and he ran into the other one who had decided to attack from the back. I'll admit, I didn't see that one coming. But the resulting thud from the collision was pretty satisfying, so I decided not to dwell over it.

The last ugly was more careful than the others. He had hung back when his partner went for me, cautiously watched me, waiting for an opening. As if I'd give him one. But I smiled at him all the same as he scowled.

However, the other uglies were still on the ground, recovering from the fight, so I didn't have anyone to use to take this one out. It was either dirty my own hands or do something to make him stop. Since I wasn't too eager to report to Mom and Dad that I had managed to make the blacklist even before my first day of school, I chose option B.

But first, I would need a branch. That was an easy fix though. There was one of reasonable length conveniently right there on the ground. I stooped to pick it up. I held it in front of me like a sword. Sword lessons I have had over the past years. Not that I had been very good at them, but still. It was better than nothing.

Apparently though, the presence of the stick had triggered the ugly's caution drive, and instead of waiting for me to go for him with the stick, he came at me instead. Exactly what I wanted. He was slow, way too slow, I easily ducked out of his way as he charged pass like a mad bull and jabbed the stick into the front of his belt, then with a small twist of my wrist, I used the stick and unbuckled it. I averted my eyes as his pants gave away and winced as I heard the sound of his fall. Okay, mission accomplished, and if anyone tries to blame me, I could even tell them that I didn't lay a finger on them. Which was true, since technically, I didn't _touch_ anyone.

The students that had been previously terrorized by the prefect committee had stood staring with giant eyes as I was "being punished" by the Elvis gang, but when the last prefect's pants fell, a few let out muffled giggles and others, the smarter ones, recognized trouble and slipped away. Soon, others saw their chances and followed suit. I took a moment to congratulate myself for setting them free.

Then I realized something had been missing and looked around. The prefect boss had been watching the fight silently, and did not bother looking back as the other kids slipped past him, though I was pretty sure he noticed their movements. Glancing around with narrowed eyes, he let out a, "Wao," before focusing his intense glare on me.

"You," he addressed with a dark look, " for disturbing the peace, attacking prefects, coming late and not wearing the school uniform, I'll bite you to death."

Wait, wait, wait. Did he just say _bite_ me to death? _BITE_ me to death? What the heck? Talk about deja vu. I couldn't decide whether it was lame or just plain funny. Maybe it was just weird because he just made himself a life representation of the evil monkey in my dream. But what really has me puzzled is the fact that I seem to have heard something like this somewhere before. But where? Maybe some kungfu movie? I don't know, I'll have to remember to ask someone sometimes.

As I was being amused by his last statement, the prefect slipped put two metal tonfas from his sleeves and walked towards me in a casual manner. Really now? What kind of a school is this?

"Hey, whoa," I said, knowing it would be no use anyway, "watch where you're going with those things. You could knock the brains out of someone on accident."

I was pretty nervous. This guy looked like he was no joke. I knew right away that he was on a different level than those Elvis fans. So I tensed up waiting. As he neared me, he broke into a sprint and swung his tonfa.

Darn it, he was fast, I knew this was going to end badly! I leaned back, but just barely. His tonfa whizzed past my face so close that I felt the force of the wind and heard the loud whoosh it made. Ok, mental note to self, do not get hit. Ever. Man, this guy is for real. No wonder he was the boss monkey.

He gave me no break as he swung the second tonfa, then immediately spun around to attack again with the first. I took several steps back, but it seemed that every time I dodged, it was just barely. Way too close for my taste. I didn't really want to tell Mom that I got beat up before my first day at school either. So the next time his weapon flew by I grabbed it by the end instead and forced him to keep it in that position.

"Is this even school appropriate?" I asked, "Should there be some rule about bringing weapons to school?"

His eyes narrowed. Not trying to be Captain Obvious here, but I think I might have pissed him off. Suddenly, there was a sharp pain that shot up my hand as multiple sharp objects pierced my palm. I let go instantly and stepped back as he took the opportunity to take another swing at me. And then I saw why I was hurt, his tonfas grew thorns. Wonderful.

It was then that I heard the sound of hurried footsteps accompanied by urgent and angry shouts that sounded like, "hey, what are you guys doing?"

I turned to see that a teacher was running towards us, waving angrily. Uh oh, if he sees my face, I'm screwed. I'll be kicked out before I even get enrolled into the school. So should I run or should I run, right? I ran. As fast as I could, away from the scene of the crime. I heard the teacher give another shout of protest, but I didn't slow down. hopefully, he'll go after the prefect instead.

In any case, the boss monkey wasn't moving. His eyes were throwing daggers at me, but he seemed to be deliberating. I almost thought that he would obey the teacher and stay, but he suddenly took off after me.

Oh, good lord, for the love of-... ugh, you know what? Never mind. I'll just keep running.

This was so not my day.

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

**Ending note: please read my beginning notice if you have not already done so, and expect the next update soon ;)**


	4. Playing Tag with the Prefect Boss Monkey

**Author's Note: Okay, here we go. Chapter three. I added a few more characterization in there, hopefully that works better. Enjoy.**

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

**Chapter three: Playing tag with the Prefect Boss Monkey**

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

When I was little and still in the care of my old friend Gustave, he prophetically told me that I would be chased by many men when I got older. I had no idea this was what he had been referring to.

The science rooms were occupied. I had actually made quite a scene bursting into the room, gasping for breath like a half crazed maniac. Nor did I fare any better in the classrooms. The girl's bathroom had been quite empty, though after a moment's hesitation, I continued running. From that crazed look I saw in the boss monkey's eye, I had a feeling that he would have no second thoughts on walking in if it meant my capture. In that case, I would not be able to escape. Besides, for all I know, he could be the type to shove people's face in the toilets. And I had no desire to get my face shoved in a toilet today, or any other day for that matter.

So where do I go then? I've been running for quite a while now, with the boss monkey hot on my trail. I have no idea how he does it. Some kind of monkey voodoo, I guess. But lucky for me, a few minutes back, some teacher had caught him running and stopped him in the hall. I wasn't caught because by that time, I was already around the corner. Ha! Take that sucker!

But my smug feeling did not last very long. I had a hunch that he wasn't going to give up easily. Which meant that, sadly, I had no choice but to keep running. Put some distance between us or maybe hide somewhere. But where do I go? Outside? That would mean risking running into him. And that was when I remembered the roof. It was a perfect hiding place. Relatively isolated and not the first place one would think to look. Perhaps if I hid there until after school, I could blend in with the other students and make it downstairs without getting spotted. Which would be rather tough to accomplish given my hair color and lack of appropriate attire, but still. It was better than nothing.

Not that I had the slightest inkling about how to get to the roof, of course. Since class was in session, there was really no way I could interrogate some poor student. Talking to the teachers would just get me caught, and there was the Prefect to think about. I couldn't run into him, that much was obvious. So that meant another hour and a half of walking sideways pressed against the walls, peering around every corner like an idiot. Don't judge.

But my hard work eventually paid off, as I knew it would. I located the door to the roof just as the bells sung out for lunch break. I allowed myself a smile of satisfaction. The passing students and crowded hallways would keep the Prefect occupied enough. Now all that's left was waiting for the opportune moment to make my escape.

I pushed open the door. Instantly, the bright rays of the blazing sun flooded the hallways, leaving me temporarily blinded. It took me a few moments to adjust. Stepping out into the light breeze, I saw that the roof was quite spacey. Big enough to fit a decent basketball or soccer match, I'll bet. Not that I'll have anyone to play with, but I must remember to bring a soccer or basketball up here at one point or another.

As I got closer to the edge it was easy to tell that the scenery below would make an interesting watch. Students hurried about quickly below, sitting under trees, playing baseball, running around, going about their daily lives. The school itself, was surprisingly large. Big track, several buildings for classrooms, and tall trees here and there. In fact, there was one just below the roof. Already, I found myself picking out places for naps, the roof being one of them. I grinned at the thought of taking naps in the breeze, up a tree, on the roof, missing class, all that jazz. It was going to be awesome.

"Ya, you!" There was a voice, smooth and deep, that came from somewhere behind me.

I closed my eyes, still grinning, _yeah me... gonna be enjoying life here_. Obviously, the significance of the voice did not register in my mind. But when feeling that I was being watched become impossible to ignore, something clicked in me that it was my subconscious that I had just heard speaking.

Oh crap... this cannot end well. It was a smooth baritone, I finally realized. So far, I only knew one person with a smooth baritone voice. And I was pretty sure he was not here to invite me to have some afternoon tea.

Grimacing, I turned. Of course it would be him. My favorite person of the day. Leaning casually on the wall by the door, blocking my escape. His arms were crossed in front of his chest and his face twisted in a dark smirk. "I thought I'd go after you later, but you saved me the trouble, huh?" He straightened himself and once again took out his tonfas.

Oh great, here I was hoping I wouldn't run into him again. I absently wondered if now was the time to bust out Super Junior's "Sorry Sorry song" and comically ask for forgiveness or something. But then again, something told me that he would not be very amused by that. Besides, I don't actually think that I need to be forgiven considering he was the one that assaulted me. I didn't really want to fight him again, at least not without an adequate weapon, my hand still stung from the numerous puncture wounds he'd given me. So I took the only other option I saw.

When I looked down the roof for the second time today, it was to calculate my chances. Let me tell you, if someone was looking up at the roof right now and sees what I'm about to do, they would freak out. But people, let me assure you, I'm not suicidal. When I do something extreme like this, I usually make sure that I can survive it, mostly in one piece. From the looks of this, it seems pretty safe, I hope.

I half wished someone was filming this. I mean, if I miss and something happens, at least I'd have a shot at winning some cash by sending the video to AFV. Except, I guess since this is technically Japan, I'd probably get disqualified. Never mind then. I turned back to the prefect and smiled, "sorry, but I really don't feel like being chewed to death or whatever it was that you said. So, I'm probably gonna head off now." I graced him with a wink, "ciao."

With that I vaulted over the railings of the roof. I wasn't particularly afraid. Okay, actually, let me rephrase that I'm kind of afraid. Maybe even a tad terrified, but don't you go repeating that to anyone. Besides, I've taken worse. The only other thing you have to know about my Mom and Dad is probably that they're kinda into extreme sports. There was this one time they took me on a helicopter for "sightseeing" and pushed me right off in the middle of nowhere. I mean, I know that they've given me skydiving lessons and all, and I had a parachute on my back, but still.

In any case, I was aiming for the tree. My hopes was that I could somehow catch hold of a branch sturdy enough to support me. Of course, I would also be gambling on the fact that nothing would get into my way and hinder me landing, but I'd rather not dwell on that.

Fortunately, things went my way. I fell through the dense leaves and managed to grab onto a thick branch to prevent my untimely demise from falling through (no puns intended). Then i hoisted myself onto the branch and looked up. The canopy of the tree was unusually thick and worked beautifully to my advantage. If I couldn't see anything above me, save for perhaps a few patches of blue sky, I figured Mr. Boss Monkey wouldn't be able to see me either.

I breathed a sigh of relief. It was over for now, but maybe I should head home today. Luck really isn't coming my way and with the prefect on my tail, I doubt I'll be able to find Tsuna-nii anyway. Sinking into a crouch, I surveyed the tree for a safe route down, but now before I heard, "cheer up, Juudaime! You'll do better next time."

"That's right Tsuna-kun! Don't feel down about just one test!" This time, the voice was sweet and high pitched, a girl's. But that was not what my mind focused on.

Tsuna? Tsuna? As in Sawada Tsuna? Sounds like they were talking about a test. A Tsuna failing a test. Hmm, that sounds just about right. I inched closer to the window from which the voices came and saw a gray haired boy with a hairstyle that looked quite like an octopus, a raven haired boy with a nice smile and a orange haired girl standing around a desk. And sitting on that desk, with his spiky brown head on the table, was none other than my Tsuna-nii.

I stared, overwhelmed by a sudden surge of excitement and nostalgia. Tsuna-nii had not changed very much, except maybe he was taller now. He had my same brown eyes, and hair in the same style as in our childhood days.

"Reborn's gonna kill me." He was whining in obvious distress.

Reborn? Who the heck is that? Anyways, failing a test, I almost laughed. It was so typical ofTsuna-nii. I could not hold back the smile though, as I went to the window so I was visible to the kids inside. Thankfully, it window was already opened so I didn't have to attract any attention by attempting to force it open.

"Failed another test, Tsuna-nii?" I greeted him, calm and casual, as if no time had passed since we last saw each other. "That's so you."

Suddenly, I was the center of focus for the entire room as all the students turned their attention to the strange blond kid by the window. Tsuna's eyes went about as big as his dinner plate as recognition dawned him.

"Uwwaa! Suzune!" He stood up so quickly that he slammed his thigh on his desk and fell back down, squealing with barely contained pain.

"Are you alright, Juudaime?" The octopus head asked frantically, arms flailing with helpless worry.

Again with the, Juudaime? Okay, something is wrong with that octopus, last time I check, no where in Tsuna's name did the number ten appear. So why Tenth? Seems like a particular nickname to give someone. I couldn't quite decide if it was some kind of insult or some kind reverence.

All across the room there were murmurs, "Who is she?" "Is she related to Tsuna?" "Couldn't be right? She looks like a foreigner! Look at that hair color!" "What's she doing in a tree?"

I smirked, I'll leave the explaining to Tsuna-nii. I'm sure he'll enjoy the uninvited attention.

"Ahh," I feigned a look of bored disappointment. Oh, this was too fun. " I'd originally hoped that you've changed in these seven years Tsuna-nii, but that doesn't look like the case!"

"Oww," he moaned with his head still on the table, "what are you doing here Suzune?" When Tsuna-nii looked up again, his eyes were swimming with unshed tears. Ok, I know it's probably from the pain, but I'm going to pretend that it was tears of happiness.

I plopped down on the branch and swung my legs back and forth, "I decided to live with you Tsuna-nii! Isn't that wonderful?" This statement I followed with my best evil grin.

"What? Since when?" He nearly shouted, wide eyed and frantic.

"Since today actually, I dropped my luggage off in your house a while back, I think I'll share a room with you! I call the bed, ok?" I smiled mischievously. This aroused another round of scandalous whispers. Probably sufficient to earn him at least a week's worth of unwanted attention and rumors if I let this go on. I wasn't really going to share his room with him, of course, but none the less, it would be fun to tease him about it.

"What? Don't decide things on your own! And how come no one told me about this?" He was starting rub his hair with both hands. My grin widened in spite of my careful control. I think I officially freaked him out. Score!

"I asked Nana-san to not tell you!" I replied matter of factly, I was having an extremely hard time holding back my laughter at this point. I swear, my cousin is the funniest person in the world. I love teasing him.

"What?" Tsuna-nii exclaimed and he was about to say more when his head slammed back onto the desk. The hair on the back of my neck rose and I immediately narrowed my eyes. Things had happened so fast that I nearly missed it myself. A baby wearing a black suit had jumped out of nowhere and kicked Tsuna's head with an astounding force. Then he landed neatly on it as if the action had been second nature to him.

"Shut up, Baka Tsuna!" He squeaked, "you're too loud."

"Juudaime!" The octopus head cried frantically again. I rolled my eyes, that guy was like an overprotective mother.

"Reborn!" Tsuna-nii cried, his protest muffled by the desk, "what did you do that for?"

Reborn? Reborn? That's the Reborn that was gonna kill Tsuna? You've gotta be kidding me! He's a baby! Although...the way he moved just now was rather impressive, entirely improbable for a mere infant, but oh well. It doesn't really matter I guess. Given the way Tsuna-nii was, I wouldn't be surprised if he was regularly abused by infants.

"That was for getting an F on the test." Reborn answered calmly. A smile hung on his face.

"Awesome, Tsuna-nii!" I teased lightly, testing the new playing field with a cautious tread. "You just got beaten by a baby!"

"Shut up, Stupid woman!" Octopus boy blew up at me, "quit insulting the tenth! Who are you anyways?"

Wow, isn't he a hothead. I surveyed him with a slight smile that appeared casual to the untrained eye. I needed to maintain my teasing image after all. But in reality, I had frozen the smile on my face. A defensive mechanism I had developed for unfamiliar situations. A smile I find, could always throw your opponent off, if only to a small degree. A second passed before I decided to approach the situation from a familiar direction.

"Tsuna-nii, who is this rude overprotective paranoid octopus?" I asked, my tone mechanically light and playful, I didn't need to get into another fight with an octopus man, "and who's the baby?"

I think the Octopus boy might have tried to make some hot headed comeback but it was lost when the baby turned to look directly I me.

"Ciaossu, Sawada Suzune! We meet again!"

I frowned and gave a confused smile. Wait a minute, what? Again? I don't remember ever meeting him.

"Erm, I don't think we've met before, baby," I answered blankly. Come to think of it, how did he even know my name?

"You wouldn't remember because you were very young at the time, so I'll introduce myself again. I'm Tsuna's home tutor, Reborn."

Pffft, home tutor? Tsuna-nii's home tutor is a baby? Oh man, this was getting out of hand. And what does he mean when I was young, he shouldn't even be born when I was young! Ah, so many things are going through my head that I couldn't really think coherently. The situation was a mix between funny and weird. As I was thinking, the group inside started to chatter.

"Sawada Suzune? Tsuna, is she some relative of yours?" laughed the black haired boy. His voice was clear and good-natured. I turned my eyes to him with his laid back smile and hands behind his head. We could be friends, I decided immediately.

"Reborn, how do you know her?" Tsuna interrogated, still panicking.

"Juudaime, should I get rid of her?" Octopus asked, reaching into the interior of his shirt.

"Tsuna-kun you should invite her inside!" the orange haired girl suggested kindly. She seemed to be one of the few normal ones in here.

"Since you haven't introduced yourself yet, I'll do it for you, Suzune!" The baby Reborn said as he turned to face Tsuna's friends. Obviously, the kid was gonna grow up to be a bossy control freak.

"This is Sawada Suzune, Tsuna's younger cousin. Starting today, she will be living with Tsuna at the Sawada residence. And," He smiled, "she has also been selected to be Tsuna's External Adviser. Treat her well people!"

"Ehhhhh?" Tsuna-nii's voice jumped two octaves, "What did you just say? External Adviser? You mean like Dad? That can't be! Don't drag Suzune into this!"

At the same time the octopus said, "What? Are you serious Reborn san? This Stupid woman right here?"

I rolled my eyes. I had no idea what they were talking about, but if this is what I would be dealing with from now on, then I wanted to be put into a different class.

"Hahaha! Are you playing the Mafia game too?" The spiky haired boy laughed.

"Hello, Sawada-san! My name is Sasagawa Kyoko!" The Orange haired girl smiled.

If I wasn't in such a convoluted situation then, I would have remarked on how it was more like a zoo in that classroom than an actual zoo, but at that moment I was otherwise occupied. Okay first of all, how on Earth did the baby get so much information about me and second of all, what the heck is an external adviser?

"Don't underestimate her Gokudera, she is the person that is most fit for this position considering that she was also a candidate for the tenth boss position," The baby answered, stealing the spotlight again.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, okay, back up. What the heck? Boss? Candidate? No one ever told me anything like that. I don't quite recall entering some kind of contest or anything like that.

This statement though, got a couple of different shocked reactions from the group inside. Tsuna-nii gave some kind of high pitched yell that kinda hurt my ears and the octopus's shocked exclamation wasn't all that melodious either. But they seemed to know a lot more about this thing than I did and that kinda bugged me.

"How the heck did you get so much information on me baby?" I asked, now I was kinda freaked out. And I do have a good reason for being freaked out. Hey if some weird talking baby you've never met before came blabbing up some random information about your life, you'd be extremely creeped out too. There was just so many things wrong with this situation on so many different levels that I had no idea where to start.

Basically, the classroom was in chaos. Everyone was trying to talk at once and, in the middle of everything, the door slid open. Three guesses on who decided to pop in. I blew my bangs up in frustration. Ah geez, this day just keeps getting better and better doesn't it?

"You guys are too noisy, keep this up and I'll bite you all to death." He said, and suddenly the room became deathly quiet. I frowned, wow, that much authority, huh?

"Ciaossu, Hibari!" Reborn said. Despite the general chill of fear that went around the room, the child seemed entirely unaffected.

So his name was Hibari? Hm, I'll have to remember that.

"Oh, baby."Hibari glanced at Reborn, "Sorry, I don't have time today, I have some other business to take care of." His gaze shifted onto me for a second before turning to Tsuna-nii.

"So this kid is affiliated with you Sawada Tsunayoshi." It wasn't a question. For the second time that day, I broke into an involuntary half frown smile of amusement and confusion. How did he find that out? Was he listening at the door or something? That stalker.

"Heeeeeeeeeee!" Tsuna-nii cried in fear. Obviously he did not share my amusement. "Umm, you see..." he began, stumbling over his own words.

"That makes things simple then." Hibari smirked, "I'll bite you both to death."

I sighed, oh dear lord, seriously? "Sorry prefect, somehow, I don't feel like getting bitten today, or any other day for that matter. So see ya!" I waved once, and in the same manner I had left him once before, I jumped out from the tree.

"Ahh Suzune, don't leave!" Tsuna-nii cried from the window.

"Sorry Tsuna-nii!" I called as I ran the other way, "I'll see you at home yeah? Tell me now the biting goes!"

I really, really hope that he survives this.

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-


	5. When Strange meets Stranger

**Author's Note: It's a little late, but here you go. Thank you for your kind support as always. Enjoy!**

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

Chapter four: When Strange meets stranger

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

The sound of my sneakers pounding the pavement was unusually gratifying. Somehow, it helped take my mind off the confusing events that just happened. I guess I'll have to interrogate Tsuna-nii when he gets home, because let me tell you, I did not understand much of what just happened and I hate being left in the dark.

"Stupid, weird town..." I grumbled darkly, "All I ever wanted was a normal life and what did I get? Violent prefects and strange incoherent talking babies..."

"That's quite unfortunate indeed." A voice squeaked.

I nearly jumped out of my skin. What? Who the heck was that? I whirled and then I saw it, the answer to my question. Somehow, a tree next to me opened up in its trunk area. Just a tiny door that slid upward to reveal the tiny talking baby that I had been silently complaining about.

"What the?" I cried out in surprise. What was his name again? Let's see, Tsuna-nii called him Reborn, right? What a weird name.

"Ciaossu!" He said and hopped from the tree as the door slid close. The tree looked flawlessly normal again. I blanched.

"How..." I stuttered and ran to the tree to inspect it, but it felt like a real tree too. Rough wooden bark placed evenly where the door had been.

"How?" I asked again as I turned to face him. I admit, I must have sounded pretty lame.

He smiled mysteriously, half amused, half pleased. "Never mind that," he said as he put his hand to his hat. A tiny, green chameleon sat on his hat looking at me with keen interest, I had assumed that it was some kind of decoration and so I was quite surprised when it started to move in response to the baby's hand. But that was nothing compared to the shock I felt when I saw that the lizard change shape. And here I thought I had seen my fair share of strange things. But come on! Change shape? How many chameleons – heck, how many things do you know can do something like that? It must have been an escaped CIA experiment or something.

"What the heck is THAT?" I nearly shrieked, horrified. Maybe I should call somebody, like the US government, or maybe the Japanese government. Would they believe me?

The baby half smirked, "Do you have time to worry about that right now?" he said as he raised the green gun that the... uh, the thing just turned into. I stared, wondering if it would actually be able to shoot and if I should be worried. The baby was clearly under some bad influences, maybe a violent family member or something. Should I call child protection services before I call the CIA?

He didn't give me a chance to find out. Time almost slowed as I watched his finger pulled back slightly. He was going to pull the trigger. I could almost feel the excess adrenaline pumping through my veins as I dived to one side. It doesn't really matter whether the freaky lizard gun can fire or not, I wasn't going to stick around to find out.

The bullet whizzed past the place where I stood just a fraction of a moment ago, and buried itself into the truck of a nearby tree. I swallowed a lump in my throat as I gawked at the sizzling hole. I guess just found out the answer to my unspoken question half a second ago.

The baby smiled again. I hate it when he smiles, I realized with a sick dread. "Not bad Suzune, you were trained pretty well," he commented nonchalantly, "although I did go easy on you, or else you would have died by now."

Died by now? Okay, I made up my mind. Child protection first, then the CIA. "What the heck did you do that for?" I cried, "what do you mean you could have killed me? Do you even have a good grasp on the concept of death?"

"But you didn't die right?" Reborn smiled innocently, "So all's well!"

"All is not well, you little psycho!" I cried, "Who the heck are you?"

"Shut up! You're as loud as Tsuna!" He said as he jumped and landed on me.

Okay, remember how babies are supposed to be nice and light and easy? I mean, even if you were hit by a dysfunctional jumble sized baby, it shouldn't have hurt too much right? So why does being kicked by this little thing feel like getting slammed by a bulldozer going at a hundred miles per hour? I literally slammed into the ground so fast and hard that I think the ground might have cracked. In any case, I'm pretty sure my chin did.

"Ah crud... What'd you do that for?" I asked angrily as I raise my head. There was fresh blood in my mouth, I could taste it. I swear if that kid made me lose a tooth, I am going to slap a female dog or two.

"For being noisy." He answered from the top of my head.

Noisy? Whose fault do you think that was? Stupid abnormal baby!

"What was that?" he asked in a dark voice.

I spat out a mouthful of bright red liquid. "I didn't say anything. Now get off me and go on a diet, you weigh more than a baby hippo does."

He did a acrobatic jump in response and landed on my spine, which produced an ominous crack. I let out a strange strangled noise. "Hmph, don't underestimate me, Sawada Suzune," he warned, "and don't call me an abnormal baby either."

Holy crap can he hear my thoughts? But that can't be possible right? But I did just see a living lizard turn into a gun so it might actually be possible that he can, actually you know what? Never mind, I don't even want to know.

I could almost hear Reborn smirk from the top of my head. "I'm hungry, let's go home so Mama can make lunch!"

I decided not to argue. Maybe if I took him home, I could have a word with his parents. "Where's home for you?" I groaned, at that point, I was pretty sure my chin was broken.

Tsuna-nii's address was then recited with flawless accuracy. I didn't know what I wanted to do more, bang my head against the ground, or curse the universe for its love of cruel jokes.

"You live at Tsuna-nii's place?" I asked incredulously, then added, "and get off my head! What am I? Your cattle?"

"Yeah, so hurry up and go!" He answered, urging me to stand up. I did so. Shakily. There was a hideous pain along my back. I'll give you three guesses why.

And by the way, he never got off my head so I never figured out to which of my questions his "yeah" was referring to.

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

"So let me get this straight." I said as calmly as I could, "you're telling me, that my parents are involved with the mafia, some super strong thingy called a "Vongola" and currently, Tsuna-nii is the official tenth generation boss?"

We sat on the floor of Tsuna-nii's room, indian style, facing each other across the small table. Much to my immense displeasure, Nana had welcomed Reborn home with opened arms and a bowl of Nabe. Half an hour later, I found myself in my current situation. Sitting in the middle of a mini tea party for two as Reborn filled me in on some information I found a little too hard to swallow.

"That's about right," Reborn answered in between sips of tea. Beside him, the teapot whistled.

"And he became official when he fought in the battle to claim the "Vongola rings" for himself and his guardians?" I continued.

"Yes." Reborn affirmed as he continued to watch me with his beady black eyes.

"And who am I again?" I asked.

"You're your uncle's successor, the tenth Generation leader to the CEDEF association," he replied, looking perfectly serious.

I cocked an eyebrow, "Ah, right, that."

Let me tell you a few things:

A.) I have absolutely no idea what he was talking about still because none of it made much sense.

B.) As much as previous experience may or may not suggest otherwise, I absolutely do not want to believe that my family is associated with the mafia.

C.) His story sounded so outlandish that it wasn't even believable anyways.

And D.) I am talking to a baby, how do you expect me to believe a baby?

"Hmm," I nodded, humoring the kid.

Nana san had left food and tea there for me and had gone shopping for dinner ingredients, which meant I was left to deal with the kid. He was munching on some stray snacks, after having consumed all of his lunch and half of mine.

"Interesting," I muttered again, filling in the gaps of silence and hoping that Tsuna-nii would come home and give me the real story soon.

Reborn hopped off the table and walked to me, then in a swift movement, he twisted my entire arm off behind my back with such monstrous strength that I thought I was going to lose that arm for sure. I couldn't really fathom why this kid was so violent. I mean, he lived with Nana, right? And she's about as harmless as they get. Unless, of course, she turns into a violent fighting machine in secret. In which case, I'm buying the next ticket back to America.

"Ow, ow! Mercy, mercy! What did I do now?" I cried as I struggled in a futile attempt to break free.

"Don't mock me! Tsuna will tell you the same story," Reborn stated darkly, "instead of focusing on your doubt think of it logically and piece things together."

"Okay, alright!" I said quickly and he let go of my arm. Could he read my thoughts after all? This is super freaky. Nonetheless, I was glad I survived in one piece instead of two. I rubbed my arms and thought back. Well, didn't Mom say that there was some dispute over some "heirlooms" and the Master got hurt? Could that have been the rings? And Reborn did mention that the ninth was injured as a result. Hmm, actually, now that I think about it... it actually makes sense. A lot of sense. And the octohead was called Tsuna-nii, "Juudaime"... was that because of his position as boss?

"So how come I wasn't chosen again?" I asked, still suspicious, "I thought you said that I was also a candidate for the position as boss, so how come I wasn't in the battle? Oh! Who was he battling with again?"

"Xanxus." Reborn answered.

"Holy mother!" I cried, "Xanxus? Xanxus nii-sama? As in the master, I mean, the ninth's son?"

"Sounds like you know him," Reborn observed lightly.

Oh yeah, too well for my liking actually. "Well, Mom asked him to "babysit" me a lot when I was a kid. But I was smart so I steered clear of him." I explained and chugged my cup of tea. With all this weird business, I thought I might need something a little stronger to steal my nerves, but for now, tea will have to do.

The first time I saw Xanxus nii-sama was at one of the parties that the Master threw. He was beating up one of his servants because they did not prepare his "meat" or whatever he said. I took that as a clear indication and steered clear of his way. Unfortunately for me though, Mom often brought me over to his side of the mansion whenever she took along me to Italy for some important meeting. So she always just lumps me over to him and asks him to watch me for a while. She might as well just throw me into a pit of hungry tigers, in fact, I think given a choice, I would've taken my chances with the tigers.

Anyways, I don't know why Mom never notices that he was always glaring at me with eyes that said, disappear or I'll help you do so. But I did. So whenever Mom drops me off at his place, I just turn and scurry the heck out of there as soon as she leaves. But anyways, I'm getting off track. Back to the conversation with Reborn.

"How on earth could my no good cousin ever have beaten Xanxus?" I almost laughed at the thought. A typical meeting between the two would have Tsuna-nii cowering on the ground with his hands over his head as a gesture of surrender. Was I really supposed to believe that Xanxus was defeated by my cousin who could not live more than ten pounds to save his own life?

"Because Tsuna has potential," Reborn answered seriously, "You didn't participate because a few years back, your parents went into the Vongola Counsel and demanded that you be pulled out from the list of candidates. They wanted you to live a danger free life."

I raised my eyebrows remembering all the times that they had put my life in danger, whether it be cliff diving or skydiving or bungee jumping off the highest place they could think of. Hard to believe that they really wanted me to live a safe life.

"They succeeded in getting the ninth to drop you as a candidate for the Tenth boss position, but the counsel refused to let you off the hook. There was no way they were going to let go of a direct descent of the Vongola Primo. So that's when they decided to make you the Tenth leader of CEDEF to support Tsuna."

I frowned, now that he mentioned it, there was this one time where my parents were particularly agitated. They told me that they were going to ask the master for a favor and, as usual, they dumped me at Xanxus's feet and asked him to watch me. Xanxus didn't even spare me a glance, he knew by then that I would get out of his way, which is exactly what I did. I was trying to make myself as small as possible in a corner when his loud friend, Squabble or Squalo or something, announced that he was going to use me as his sword practicing dummy. So I decided it was high time to bounce and scrambled out of there. And as I wandered around, I came to this giant room thingy with its doors shut tightly. Almost like the people inside didn't want anyone to hear what they were saying so, of course, I did the right and respectful thing: I put my ears against the door and listened.

"We object to this!" A woman was saying, I quickly identified her to be Mom. "She cannot and must not be on the consideration list."

The people inside responded in murmurs and I didn't catch much. But I think I heard the Master's voice ring out above the general commotion and after a while I heard, "Then she must follow after Iemitsu's footsteps. That is our compromise." I didn't recognize the voice, but I recognized my Uncle's name.

I didn't understand what they meant, but I do remember that it was around then that the weird training began. Crap, Reborn's story is beginning to sound more and more credible. But seriously? Do I really have no choice but to go along with the flow. In any case, if all this turns out to be some kind of sick joke, I swear I was going to commit murder.

"So who's in Tsuna-nii's, uh" I paused. What was the word Mafia people use to describe its members again? I ventured a guess, "family?"

"Here's your answer!" Reborn said and half a second later, a giant book was smashed onto the table. I had no idea where he even pulled that out from, but I leaned over for a gander. On the cover, it said, Vongola Tenth 101, a complete guide. What is this, some kind of video game book? A complete guide? Come one! Actually, you know what, best not to question him.

"This is all the information you need to know." Reborn said, "Get reading!"

I turned the page and found that nearly everything was written in Italian. I sucked at Italian. Wonderful.

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

"Ahahaha! Lambo-san's arrived!"

My head snapped up from the page I was reading. My eyes were dying. "Would it have killed you to print the letters larger?" I had asked indignantly. My replied had been a smirk and a crisp, "nope". So I had no choice but to go back to reading. Lucky, I had my laptop for dictionary support. Half the words made no sense to me, I might as well have been reading some unknown language at the rate I was comprehending things.

However, I did gather some pretty useful information. Apparently, Tsuna-nii really enjoys appearing in public with his underpants nowadays. I'll have to remember to tease him about that.

"Who are you? I am Lambo. Who am I? You are Lambo," apparently some narcissist had just entered the house and bursted into a horrifically self satisfied song. And judging by the sound of that shrill laugh, It was probably some obnoxious kid. Let me see if I can kick him out before he starts bugging me. I got up and left Tsuna-nii's room.

"I'm home!" Nana-san's voice traveled down the hallway, so I quickened my own pace.

"Nana-san! Welcome home!" I called on my way down, it was a traditional greeting, "did you want me to help you with the groceries?"

"Oh, thank you, that's very thoughtful of you!" She called back and I knew she was smiling. I started down the staircase when I just thought of something. Nana-san just came home and that must have been how the kid I heard got in as well. Does that mean that the kid is hers I have other cousins that I don't know about? I mean, why else would she let other kids in when Tsuna-nii isn't even home? Holy crap, did she have another kid without telling me? One Tsuna-nii was already enough! Did she really just stuff me with another cousin? I charged down the stairs to find...

"Ahhh!" I all but hollered at the nasty scene I found, "Oh no! THREE?" Indeed, there were three children there looking at me like I was nuts. The oldest looking one, the kid with the light brown hair and a scarf, picked up the other two shorties and backed away from me.

"Eh?" Nana san's eyes questioned my sanity.

"Crap! Three more accursed little sucker! And," I took another peek, "One of them is a cow wannabe!"

"Alala? Who's the newbie?" the cow baby spoke in a arrogant manner, "Do you want to become Lambo-san's subordinate? If you do Lambo San will play with you."

"Noooooo, it talked!" I cried, feeling down right miserable, "tell me this is just a dream, I don't need more cousins."

"Cousins?" Nana san smiled, "Oh no, these are not your cousins."

I stopped freaking out. "Not?" I asked.

But before Nana san could answer, something that felt like a herd of elephants crashed into my back and I immediately fell onto the ground.

"Did you even read the book?" Reborn squeaked somewhere on my back. I couldn't really tell, my ears were kind of ringing. I wondered if now was a good time to die and go to heaven. I swear this place is even more troublesome than traveling with my parents.

"It should start from page one fifty, you should be able to find all their info." He stepped off my head, "But first, help mama carry the bags!"

I twitched. This was going to be a long, long day.

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

I shut the book and sighed. My head was semi-spinning from everything I just read, half off the pages of the book, and half off of Google translate. Stuff like this should only happen in story books. I mean, come on, ten year bazooka? Pinzu timed super explosion? Ranking? Who's gonna believe all that? But then again, I've been through so much today that I can believe almost anything now.

"Gahahaha!" Lambo laughed as he stood on the table, "you're Stupid Tsuna's cousin? Then you must be no good too! Stupid!" He laughed again. I'm usually even-tempered, but there is a limit to everything. Ever since he came home, this stupid cow has been bugging me about this and that in that really annoying tone of his. And by the time I finished reading about him, I was already kinda daydreaming about how nice it would be if I could just give him a friendly little shove out the window. But before I could do anything, Reborn snapped and ordered, "Shut up, you're annoying!"

"Lambo San is not annoying!" Lambo cried, "Die, Reborn!" With that he pulled out two purple hand grenades.

Had I not read the book, I would have probably thought that those were just toys. But since I read Lambo's profile, I knew that, as much as I would like those to be fake, they're not and I had to get rid of them. Fast.

"Lambo!" My voice jumped two octaves, quite like my cousin's did several hours before. "Don't play with those!" I grabbed them and chucked them out the window and was ready to breathe a sigh of relief when I noticed Reborn had grabbed onto Lambo and chucked him out the window as well.

Whatever protest I was about to make was drowned out by the sound of the sound of the explosion. Crap, that's gonna kill him for sure, and with my luck today, _I'll _probably end up being the one arrested for murder. Don't you love it when the day starts off worse and keeps rolling downhill? I should just curl up and die in some corner right now.

"He's not dead yet." Reborn said in response to my thoughts. Seriously, dude? How the heck does he do that?

I quickly rushed to the window and saw a smoking, but otherwise unharmed Lambo flat on his back in the yard below.

"Gotta... stay... calm- I can't do it!" He said before breaking into a sharp wail.

I sighed, plugged my ears and turned away from the window. "I need a drink of water."

"Umm," the door opened slightly to reveal the light brown haired timid boy who, according to the Vongola 101 guide of doom or whatever the title said, goes by the name of, Ranking Fuuta. "The tea and the biscuits are ready. Mama asked me to bring it to you."

Hmm, this one was cute and more satisfactory than Lambo, and for that I was thankful.

"Come in, Fuuta!" Reborn urged and Fuuta shyly stepped into the room. I watched as he obediently laid the plate biscuits as well as the pot of tea on the table.

"So, ranking Fuuta right?" I asked the little boy and he nodded. Is he really that amazing? I thought, hoping (and experimenting) that Reborn would hear. I'm assuming he did because the next moment, he turned to Fuuta and asked him to perform a ranking to convince me of his abilities.

"Rank her three most embarrassing secrets." Reborn said.

"WHAT?" I shot back, eyes wide with alarm, "Why that?"

"You asked for it!" Reborn smirked before turning to Fuuta who nodded shyly.

"Okay, Suzune nee-chan, I'll rank your top three most embarrassing secrets." He said and I, in turn, slapped my forehead. It shouldn't be so bad right? I mean, I think they're not that bad. It's the same as everyone else, you know, okay, so I was afraid of the dark until age twelve, so what? Okay, so I do have a habit of overeating when it comes to sweets, but I was only taken to the hospital once for going into that food coma! That's not so bad right? Everyone does it! And I'm sure (almost) everyone had their fair share of tripping and accidentally pulling off their neighbor's shorts while trying to prevent their fall right? Happens to everyone right? And besides, I don't think the kid can get it anyways, so just calm down Suzune, everything will be fine. Yes, fine and - Holy mother! I'm floating!

I looked around and saw the even the water was suspended in midair. And sitting in the middle of all this, was a glassy eyed looking Fuuta.

"Yes, I can hear you ranking star." Fuuta said. Ok, if I didn't read about the process, I'd think he was on drugs. But anyways, even if what I read about is true, I don't think he'll be able to get it. In any case, I'm hoping that it starts to rain this very second. But of course, my wish didn't come true, they almost never do.

"Third place is that you were afraid of the dark until you were twelve." Fuuta said. My stomach turned to stone and shattered into a million pieces. Crud.

"In second place, you once ate so much that you went into a food coma." Wonderful, just stupendous.

"And finally, in first place, you once pulled your neighbor's shorts down while trying to prevent your fall." At that moment, I could literally feel my sanity dropping off in giant chunks, this is not good, let's hope no one heard. I squeezed my eyes shut as we landed and stayed immobile on the ground.

"I wonder if Tsuna will be interested in this." Reborn smiled, poking me with his foot. If evil had a physical manifestation, this kid was it.

Oh great, how am I ever going to get him to keep quiet about this? And as if to make things worse, Fuuta said, "I'm going to write this in the ranking book!"

"No!" I shrieked.

"Why?" They both looked at me, like I was asking something extremely unreasonable.

Okay, time to unleash some mad convincing skills.

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

"Why do I have to go pick him up again?" I asked as we hiked up the road to Tsuna-nii's school. Lambo and I-pin ran ahead, laughing happily.

Reborn had insisted that I come along to pick up Tsuna-nii in order to get to know his family members better, needless to say I wasn't too pleased about the fact that I was about to meet more weirdos. But then again, now that Reborn has some blackmail material on me, I'll just have to be good.

Reborn didn't answer my previous question. Instead he told me to move faster so I had to break into a run as he sat effortlessly on my head. I think he's enjoying this way too much. I'll have to get him back someday. Though that might be kinda hard considering he knows what I'm thinking. Oh well, I'll figure out something, where there's a will there's a way. Or at least, I'm fervently hoping for it.

We arrived at the school as whole flocks of children came out, eager to get home or wherever it is that they want to go. In truth, I was jealous, they get to leave but I have to pick up my cousin, I don't know about you, but I certainly saw something wrong with that picture.

"There they are." Reborn pointed and I snapped out of my thoughts. Tsuna nii came walking towards us with his "family". Gokudera, with his hands behind his head, walked at Tsuna-nii's right hand side. A stubborn expression, glued on his face while the others, Yamamoto, Kyoko, and Ryo-something, pei, rei, no, it was Ryohei, yeah, that guy, Ryohei, were locked in an animated conversation with my cousin.

"Tsuna!" Lambo called as he and I-pin rushed to greet Tsuna-nii. I-pin jumped into my cousin's arms while Lambo clung to his leg. I was pretty sure that I saw the kid wipe his nose with the fabric.

"Lambo!" Tsuna said in surprise, "I-pin, Reborn!" His eyes widened when he saw me. Almost like he had convinced himself that he had been dreaming, but received a rude awakening at the sight of me. "Suzune!" he groaned.

"Yeah, love you too, cousin," I rolled my eyes at the damp greeting.

"Ciaossu!" Reborn said, while I shook off the sarcastic face and managed a small teasing grin, 'S'up Tsuna-nii, good day at school?"

"What are you talking about?" Tsuna-nii wailed, "Thanks to you I was almost beaten to death!"

"Hmm, almost, darn – I mean, that's great Tsuna-nii!" I laughed. I said the "darn" part on purpose because as usual, his expression turned out to be priceless.

We stayed and talked for awhile, and as it turned out, I guess his friends were okay people after all. Kyoko was really nice, though her brother was EXTREMELY weird, no puns intended there. Yamamoto was super awesome, as I had predicted. His smile was friendly and charismatic as we spoke. Even Gokudera managed to mutter some kind of incoherent apology about "being rude to the external adviser earlier" and asked me to excuse his behavior. I should have given him more of a hard time but I felt generous at the moment, so I told him okay.

When the skies grew into a deep purple and the orange sun faded from view, Kyoko and her brother excused themselves to return home.

I was feeling better. They weren't hard people to get along with. And maybe if I pretend that there was nothing going on, everyday life should proceed somewhat normally. I was just about to move from my spot at the gate and suggest we go for a drink when an adorable yellow bird drifted from the sky singing:"Midori tanabiku, Namimori no – Dai naku shounaku nami ga ii."

When it landed on my head upon the song's conclusion, I nearly melted.

"It's so cute!" I squeaked in adoration. Lifting my hand above my head, I reached to pet it. Only then did it flapped its wings and said, "Hibari! Hibari!"

I immediately changed my mind about it. Anything that could say that word, Hibari, would immediately lose points in my book.

Tsuna-nii of course, was freaking out. "That's! That's," He exclaimed, stuttering. But before he could finish the sentence, a smooth baritone voice interrupted him.

"Hmm, what are you guys doing loitering in school?" His eyes traveled across the group and lingered a few moments on me, in what I assumed to be annoyance, before he took out his tonfas, "You again?" he addressed me directly, ignoring everyone else. "I'll have you punished for disturbing the peace of the school."

I chuckled, "You and what army?" I have no idea what madness drove me to say that, but I was pretty sure that Tsuna-nii was right when he hissed that I was hurrying our doom, but for some reason, I enjoyed talking back to the prefect, so I continued, "besides, with you around to bully people, I doubt that there had ever been much peace to begin with!"

He never verbalized his anger, but his eyes narrowed as he came closer. It was answer enough. Tsuna-nii let out that "hiii" sound again and Gokudera took out his dynamite while shouting useless threats. Yamamoto just grinned and said, "ma, ma, let's calm down!" I liked his attitude, even if it never works.

I shot him a sly grin in reply, "Yessir, we're all as calm as the still waters. I don't know why you would think otherwise." Yamamoto blinked once at me and laughed, a genuine laugh, even in this tense situation. I wondered if he was actually oblivious to the situation, or was just acting oblivious to keep things from getting out of hand.

But this was no time to analyze his character. I took my gaze from him and glanced at the prefect, whose frown had deepened dangerously. Something told me he was not accustomed to laughter, or even happiness in general.

"Don't worry," I whispered to Tsuna-nii, he was sweating buckets, "I've got a plan A and a plan B."

"What's plan A?" He whispered, slightly more calm now that he knew a backup plan was on its way.

"Where's I-pin?" I hissed back and in response, Tsuna-nii looked around and gave a shout of fright. We all turned to see I-pin standing there red faced with these mahjong symbols on her large forehead.

"It's the Pinzu bomb!" Tsuna-nii shouted as he picked her up. Looking frantically for a place to throw her.

"Good," I encouraged, " now chuck her at the Hibari!" It was a perfect plan, we throw I-pin, Hibari blows up. A win-win scenario in my eyes, but did Tsuna-nii listen? Of course not. After shooting me a "you're not helping" look, my smart, smart cousin decided to throw I-pin up as far as possible and she exploded in midair. Instantly, the resulting force picked up debris that bit at my vision.

"You just ruined plan A!" I hollered at Tsuna-nii, then coughed as dust filled air entered my lungs.

"What kind of a plan was that?" Tsuna-nii shouted back.

"A very good one! And it would've worked too had you not ruined it!" I snapped.

"Never mind that!" Gokudera growled, grabbing around the dust area with his eyes squeezed shut, "What's your plan B, woman?"

"Run!" I shouted and, without waiting for the others, I bolted from the gates.

"That's your plan?" Tsuna-nii came huffing and puffing next to me but he kept up. I gotta say, more than anything else I've seen today, this the most impressive yet.

"You got something better?" I asked, "If not, then keep running!"

And so, we ran.


	6. Eenie Meenie Miney Moe

**A/N: Sorry for the wait ladies and gents. So, here you are. A NEW chapter that was not introduced in the original. This was originally intended to be a one chapter thing, but it turned out to be kinda long and I'm kind of tired. So I'm going to post this now and finish the rest tomorrow.**

**See you soon!**

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

**Chapter five: Eenie, Meeny, Miney, Mo, catch a - Oh my freak, that's an actual tiger! (Part one)**

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

"Go ahead and introduce yourself."

I glanced sideways at the teacher, whose name I'd already forgotten, through the corner of my eye. It wasn't that I was particularly shy, or embarrassed or anything, but I've always hated self introductions. It was too much of a hassle for my taste.

Despite this, I pasted a friendly grin on my face. Better to seem friendly than snobby and stuck up. Yamamoto-kun and Kyoko-chan had sent accepting smiles way way, but from his place in the back of the room, Tsuna-nii watched me with an uneasy expression. As if he was afraid I'd explode something in front of the entire class. The thought almost made me laugh.

I took a bow, "I'm Sawada Suzune, pleased to make your acquaintance. I hope to get along with everyone."

Everyone's eyes were on me, clearly the effect from my chaotic appearance before still lingered. Their curious, yet unsure expression, made me pretty proud of myself for it. After all, I believed in big first impressions.

"Alright," the teacher nodded with a smile of approval, "since we don't have a seat for you next to your cousin, how about you take that empty seat up front by Ondo-kun."

I gave a polite response and walked to the second seat from the door. It wasn't the most ideal position to be sure. I had originally wanted a seat by the window or close to the back, so I could stare out into the yard or fall asleep behind a book. Looks like that wasn't happening. Oh well. At least when I do end up blowing up something, I make a quick exit if my seat's by the door.

The rest of the morning went by without a mishap. The boy next to me had flashed me a grin and introduced himself as, Ondo Hikaru. He was a chatty one, so I spent the remainder of homeroom sneakily exchanging notes with him.

English class passed like a breeze for me. Having lived in America for a amount of years, plus all those times I've visited the place in my youth, enabled me to outshine Tsuna-nii, and pretty much the rest of the class in every turn. Japanese, however, did not pass by as smoothly. But I figured, I was okay as long as I didn't fail more than Tsuna-nii did.

Life was perfect. So normal that I became nervous, skittish even. It was definitely a calm before the storm, that was the only explanation. I felt oddly apprehensive and paranoid. Life was out to get me, somehow, I just knew it.

"Sawada-san?"

Ho boy, here we go.

The bell had barely even finished ringing when my name was brought up unexpectedly. My eyes snapped into focus at our homeroom teacher. He had just finished teaching math. But personally, I had just finished nodding off and accomplished a master piece doodle on the edge of my notebook. It was a cartoonized version of him ordering his number minions to eat up the rest of the children. I hoped, for my own sake, that he didn't recognize himself. I wasn't that good of an artist, after all. Was I?

About a million different scenarios of why I could be in trouble raced through my mind. Accompanied by another million excuses and escape plans to go along them them. I wanted to ask if I was in trouble or something, just cuz I couldn't really take the suspense, but then what if I was panicking on a false alarm? So instead, I decided to play it cool to test the waters. "Yes," I responded innocently.

Thankfully, he didn't notice the drawings. Or if he did, he never said anything. Instead he stopped by my desk on his way out the door with a smile. "Would you mind taking these documents to the third music room? There's a student organization meeting going on there," he held out a sealed envelope.

I took a moment to stare dumbly at him.

Uh, a little tiny smidgen of a problem here? I didn't even know where the bathroom is, much less this forty-fifth music room thing. In case you didn't notice, I'm kinda new here.

Don't worry though, I didn't say any of that stuff to his face. Instead I took the envelope with a dumbfounded expression. "Uh, yeah," I heard myself say. I sounded like a mentally challenged child.

The teacher chuckled, as did most of the other people who saw my expression. "Don't worry, I'm only doing this to help you familiarize yourself with the school," the teacher comforted as he pulled out a small map. "Here's where you are," he circled a small dot on the already tiny piece of paper, "and this is how you get to the music room."

I squinted at the map, trying to make out the routes as he gave me verbal instructions on how to get to my destination. Frankly, it went in one ear and out the other. Which was why ten minutes later, I ended up hopelessly lost in some heaven forsaken corner of the school. The map was printed so small that it had hardly been of any help at all, and it seemed like every kid I asked gave me a different set of instructions. I had a sneaking suspicion that they were trying to mess with me.

"Had I known this would happen, I would have dragged Tsuna-nii along." I muttered glumly to myself. But then again, knowing him, he would probably get lost right along with me. Even though he's been in this school for way longer.

I ended up being so busily entranced in my own miserable world that I did not see him coming around the corner. It was only after I had felt the impact did I realize something had been in my way. In any case, the person was a heavy dude and I went stumbling backwards, swearing up a mini storm when I hit the ground.

"Don't let the chairman here you say that,"a gruff voice injected itself into my pirate speech.

Slowly, I opened my tightly shut eyes. Frowning at the large hand offered to me. "Chairman? What the heck are you smoking?" I had started to say, when I recognized the horribly outdated Elvis hairdo. It was like watch the ring girl crawl out of the TV all over again. I all but jumped out of my skin. "Elvis dude!" I nearly shouted.

He was quite tall, taller than most of the other dudes, I would have to say. More well built than the others, and a little more mature looking too. When I let slipped his nickname, he gave an unhappy cringe.

"I have a name, Sawada Suzune-san," he answered, retracting his hand as I helped myself to my feet. I rolled my eyes. "You have a name? Really now? Because you know, clearly, I really think that every single one of you hooligans was named, Elvis Dude." It was a sarcastic response, but I didn't really care. I was sort of in a bad mood for some odd reason. I didn't ask how he knew my name either. I wasn't even surprised anymore. It was like every other person here knew my name before I was even aware of their existence.

He sighed again as he bent down to help me pick up my envelope. I watched in half surprise. Hey, he wasn't so bad without the boss monkey around to give orders. "No need for you to be angry," he replied calmly, "I'm not here to cause you trouble." He held out the envelope like a peace offering.

I gauged that for a while. Temporary peace, huh? I could work with that. Besides, I needed someone to help me get to the third music room in this labyrinth. "Fine," I took back the envelope, "thanks. So why are you here, then? Patrol duty or something?"

He gave me a strange look, like I said something totally weird or something. "No, I need to go see Hibari-san in the the student organization meeting."

I blinked in surprise. "Third music room?" I asked dumbly, half afraid of his answer.

"Yes, how did you know?" surprise saturated his voice.

I groaned, "wild guess." Hibari was in the third music room? Great. As if my lunch break wasn't miserable enough already. Oh well. At least I can follow somebody there to get to get this over with.

The Elvis dude raised his eyebrows when I trailed along behind him, head bobbing like a doom gloom cloud. "What are you doing?"

"Following you to the third music room," I answered dully.

He made a troubled expression. "I don't think that's a good idea, Sawada-san," he said, "Hibari-san is still upset with you for the incident before."

I grunted in annoyance. "Don't worry, it's not as if I'm particularly thrilled to see him either. I don't have a choice though, so let's just get this over with."

Elvis dude just sighed and gave me a 'your funeral' look of resignation before walking on. I ran after him.

"You know, you're not half bad when your boss monkey is not around," I chattered casually, "What's your name anyway?"

"Kusakabe Tetsuya."

"Kusakabe? That's kinda a mouthful. Can I call you something cool instead? Like something gangster. Tee-Tee maybe, or T-dog. Yeah, I kinda like T-dog."

At this, Kusakabe Tetsuya tired rubbed his forehead with a long sigh.

I think he kinda regrets talking to me.

But that's okay. I get that a lot.

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

"So, uh, are student orgs meetings usually this," what was the word? Rowdy? Brutal? Violent? "Exciting?" I finished.

As it turned out, the third music room wasn't really that far from where we were. I think I actually passed it once or twice. How I missed it all that time, I have no idea. But I wasn't really concentrating on my own idiocy at the moment.

We were charging at full speed towards our destination, or Kusabake was running towards, and I was trying my best to convince him otherwise. Just a second again, a chair had came crashing out into the hall, taking with it, the sliding doors. Screams and sounds of chaos soon ensued. And I don't know about you, but something told me that we should not really be near the vicinity at the moment, much less running towards it.

Kusakabe, however, would not hear a word of that. He was, after all, Hibari's loyal Elvis guard, and if Hibari was in the room with the flying chair, of course he would be running towards it. I have no idea why I'm following him.

"Look, I'm just sick of you giving orders like a brutal tyrant all the time!" A protest resounded in the hallway, where a small crowd of curious observers had gathered. It sounded kind of familiar, but I couldn't quite place my fingers on it.

The voice continued to project angrily. "Why do we have to obey your every whims? This is just as much our school as it is yours!"

Then it hit me. Ondo-kun. Suddenly it was me that was taking the lead in the charge. I had no what demonic possession spurred him on this angry uprising, but I had a pretty good idea who he was talking to.

I reached into my pockets. My parents never really approved of this, but when I was travelling the world with them, I had the good fortunes of coming across a cool merchant who sold the strangest gadgets in Istanbul. I wanted to buy from him the moment I laid eyes on his merchandize, but Mom told me no, and Dad had to carry me away. Too bad they couldn't keep their eyes on me all the time though. Because later on that day, when they were busy, I shook off my bodyguards and found the merchant right where I left him.

I practically bought half his collection in excitement. But of course, our love was never meantt to be. Mom and Dad were furious about my little escape and most of the stuff that I couldn't hide went straight to the trash. But still, I got to keep some things; like these smoke bombs for instance.

Last night, when I thought about it, I figured, since I was dealing with a tonfa wielding jerk, I might as well keep some self-defense items with me at all times. Which is kinda why I have about six smoke bombs in my pockets, a can of pepper spray in my bag, and a flashlight that worked as a stun gun strapped beneath my sweater.

When I got near the scene of the showdown, I found Ondo-kun standing in the middle of a chaotic room. He appeared to be holding some sort of metal rod. I breathed easier. At least he was defending himself.

The chairs and tables had been flung to one side and the others had already fled the room. Hibari stood opposite of Ondo-kun, tonfas raised in a cool and collected manner as usual. A dangerous smile danced about on his lips.

"If you have a problem," he taunted calmly, "then come."

Ondo-kun tensed, brows furrowed deeply in fury. He was going to take the bait. There was no mistake about it. I saw him crouch and saw Hibari's smirk spread in anticipation. A dark anger brewed in my own stomach. He looked like a cat playing with its food, cruel and unfeeling.

The next thing I knew, Ondo-kun soared backwards and crashed into the wall outside the room. Some of the girls watching the fight screamed.

Hibari didn't relent. I knew he wouldn't. Slowly, he walked to where Ondo-kun had been struggling to get up. A smile of dark satisfaction hung on his face as he reached down.

"Time to clean up, huh?" he smiled.

My body reacted before I had time to process what to do, and when Hibari's hand clamped down, it was not Ondo-kun that he grabbed. It was my raised arm. And then there was no time for some well thought out plan as I had originally planned for.

A rebellious smile sprouted on my lips as I met his eye. For a moment, I saw surprise in them, before the irritation settled in.

"You again," he said simply.

I grinned, "missed me yet?" I moved before he could decide what to do with me. Stun gun in hand, I thrusted my arm forward at the Prefect. An alarmed glint entered his expression and he let go instantly, leaping backwards with raised weapons.

I watched as his eyes narrowed. Were they violet or grey? I found myself wondering and gave myself a mental scolding. This was no time to play catch the small details. Besides, what do I care what color they were?

"Sawada-san," I heard Ondo-kun call weakly from behind as he stood up shakily. I stood up with him, to get into a more prepared stance. Just in case Hibari decided to charge. Electricity crackled around the front of the stun gun, deadly and intimidating, though Hibari looked relatively unimpressed. It worried me a little.

"Wao," he said with a look of slight amusement, "interesting."

"Ondo-kun, go back to the classroom," I urged. Now that Hibari was focused on me, Ondo-kun would probably have a chance at making it back. Hopefully the rest of the Elvis dude wouldn't catch him.

"But what about you?" Ondo-kun asked, concerned.

"I got this bro," I tried to sound light and nonchalant. I wished he would just listen to me and go already. I could barely keep up with Hibari, much less take care of him. "This baby packs enough volts to bring a full grown bear to its knees."

"But..." he protested again.

I let a frustrated expression slip. Hibari was going to attack any minute now, what part of that didn't the boy understand? Oh well, I've been dying to use these anyways. Retrieving a smoke bomb from my pocket, I let out a word of warning for Ondo-kun to run before throwing it onto the ground.

Instantly, a blinding white smoke filled the air. There were footsteps all around as people screamed and ran, and I made a grab for Ondo-kun's arm.

"Let's go," I cried, as I began running from the smoke with the boy in tow.

It was only at the edge of the smoke cloud that the sharp pain shot from my shoulder and I was forced to let go of the arm I had been holding. Questions shot through my panicked mind. Was that Hibari? How did he catch up so fast? Did he get Ondo-kun?

Jumping back, I put an arm on my wounded shoulder and squinted. The smoke was starting to clear out a little, and I could make out a single figure. It didn't look like Ondo-kun.

Oops.

Did I end up dragging the wrong person?

"For disturbing the peace in Namimori, I'm going to bite you to death," announced the smooth baritone cooly.

I cringed.

Oh dear.

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-


	7. Eenie Meenie Miney TWO

**A/N: Hi guys, please don't kill me. Okay, I know so I totally made you wait almost a year for this but it's here, the next chapter of CTSC. Please don't kill me? I drew you a picture to go with it. Just search up Sawada Suzune on Deviantart and it should be the one titled, "Innocent days". Now go print it out and put it on your fridge ;)**

**In other news: this chapter was supposed to put an end to the eenie, meeny story, but it was way too long to put in one chapter. So yes, there will be a part three. And no, you won't have to wait too long, I swear. **

**This is an unprocessed first draft, so excuse any mistakes please!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own KHR or any of the characters except the ones I made up etc, etc.**

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

**Chapter Six**:** Eenie, Meeny, Miney, Mo, catch a - Oh my freak, that's an actual tiger! (Part two)**

When I was little, around five (maybe six) years old, there came a day when Tsuna-nii and I went out exploring. My idea, of course, Tsuna-nii had been dead against it. He had been scared as always. But I had threatened to drop ants onto his bed, so he had no choice but to nervously follow along.

So, in a way, I suppose that our getting lost two hours later was partially my fault. But all blame games aside, one thing led to another and we were hopelessly lost in a strange neighborhood, somewhere near the outskirts of Namimori.

Tsuna-nii was terrified, naturally. I remember vaguely that he was tightly clutching my arm, sticking to my side so closely that I sometimes stumbled.

Truth be told, I was a little scared myself. Just a little though, mind you, I was never a scaredy-baby, not even back then. But I was a little scared, nonetheless, as any lost little kid should be. And it didn't really help that Tsuna-nii was next to me, exuding a doom-gloomy aura, looking like he was about to cry.

At some point, I started talking to him. I don't quite recall the details of everything we talked about. I think we were just talking for the sake of talking, to relieve the tension and pass the time. I tried to teach Tsuna-nii a French folksong that my mother used to sing to me, but he struggled so much with the pronunciation that I had to give up and advised Tsuna-nii that perhaps France was not a country he should consider working in. We both laughed. After that, Tsuna-nii became more relaxed, even if he still refused to let go of my arm.

Around the outskirts of Namimori, there exists a relatively uninhabited area. The locals say that once upon a time, a long, long time ago, the area had belonged to a small shrine dedicated to some of the minor forest gods around the area. But with the changing times, the Shrine was neglected and eventually abandoned.

No one even really knew what the shrine looked like anymore. Wines and weeds and wild things had all but taken over the area, so they fenced the area off, completing the process with a "do not trespass" sign to ward off the public.

Tsuna-nii and I had gone passed the place once or twice with responsible adults but neither of us had actually gone up so close to it as we did back then. Nor did we anticipate to. To this day, neither of us could accurately recall just how exactly we ended up wondering to the sealed off shrine, but we did. And as we stood looking up at the daunting, metal fence wrapped almost completely by alien, green leafs, something rustled in the bushes on the other side.

Tsuna-nii was instantly overwhelmed with terror. You could see it in his eyes. The way they swam in unshed tears, alert, yet almost glazed over.

I was startled too, of course. In the back of my mind, I could almost hear my own heart pounding as I looked intently at the bushes, nervously anticipating something to jump out. However, despite all this, I had found myself patting my cousin softly on the back. "It's okay, Tsuna-nii, it's only a rabbit," I reassured him.

Ever since the day we were first introduced, Tsuna-nii had always formally been my, "onii-chan". When we were together, the adults always addressed him as such. They would say things like, "Onii-chan, take care of Su-chan", or "look at you two, playing along so nicely! It must be nice to have an onii-chan to play with, right Suzu?" Of course, I would nod and smile in response mechanically; nevertheless, I'd never truly felt that Tsuna-nii was anything close to any "onii-chan". He was a playmate and a cousin, nothing more. If anything, most of the time, I felt like the superior one of the two of us. I would be the one ordering him around, leading him places, initiating the games, and setting all the rules. If something scared him, I would frighten it away; if something puzzled him, I would do my best to explain, not the other way around.

Yet, when the source of the noise, a brown snake from inside the rustling bush, slithered out toward us a few moments later, I had never felt more young and helpless next to Tsuna-nii. And in those moments, he was truly an _older_ cousin to me, someone I could look to for help, someone to take care of me. But when I looked to him, he was already gone from my side and backing away from both myself and the snake, crying and trembling, shaking his head in horror.

It was in those moments that something in me shattered. I look at him - at that terrified helpless boy they called my "onii-chan", and scared as I was, something shattered. I wasn't mad at him for leaving me, nor did I blame him for being terrified, but something was different. Something disappeared. And ever since then, my behavior towards him had always held a subtle sardonic edge...

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

About six hours before my encounter with the showdown between Ondo-kun and Hibari, I woke up with a terrible headache. I'd been dreaming of a snake, which turned into a hippo, which turned into a tiger, which turned into a very, very fat lady. I have no idea what could have possibly prompted such a terrifying dream, or how my mind even made the connection between snakes, hippos, tigers, and ladies. My imagination puzzles even myself sometimes.

Reborn had decided to don himself in a ridiculously suspicious fortune teller robe that morning. By the time I arrived at the breakfast table, he had already settled into a ceremonious stance and was reading Fuuta's fortunes.

"Yes, you will live a long prosperous life…" he squeaked in a fake wise voice as I crossed the kitchen, "so long as it doesn't rain, of course.''

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, but I could not help looking up at the ceiling with a look of exasperation. So the kid can live a prosperous life, so long as it doesn't rain. Who would believe a dumb interpretation like that?

As if to prove me wrong, Fuuta gave a despairing exclamation. "Eh?" He cried, "But it's going to rain tomorrow!"

I gave a tired sigh and let my shoulders sag. It was barely seven-thirty in the morning and already, I felt exhausted. "Look here, Fuuta," I said, "just because you had one baby predict your future, doesn't mean your entire life's prosperity is going to go down the drain. Don't worry if it rains tomorrow. I'm sure you'll be fine."

Fuuta looked at me with a pair of large, half disbelieving eyes in response and Reborn turned to me from his position across the room. "Oh ho?" He pretended to wheeze, "does this young whippersnapper not believe me?"

I ignored this. "You should stop scaring little kids," I shot. "Besides, who are you calling a whippersnapper? When I was born, you weren't even alive!"

At that, a strange glint entered Reborn's eyes. "Wanna bet?" He asked with a smirk.

"Uh…" there was something about the confidence in his face that threw me back for a fraction of a second. I was supposed to have said, "yeah, and you'd lose". But in that moment, my words completely deserted me. I frowned and scanned him carefully. Something about this psychotic infant was off, strange, mysterious, freaky, whatever you want to call it.

"Well, it's fine," Reborn said dismissively after a moment, "more importantly, young miss. Would you like to have your fortunes told?"

I took a gulp from my glass of milk and walked to him warily. Fuuta hopped off the seat next to Reborn and relinquished the spot to me. I sat down slowly, eyeing Reborn as he regarded me.

"Ho…" he said, tapping the table, "ho ho! Interesting…."

I raised an eyebrow and sipped my milk.

"Interesting," he droned again. "You will encounter many exotic creatures today." I looked at him. As usual, he made no sense whatsoever.

"Cool," I responded and returned to my glass of milk.

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

Five and a half hours before my unfortunate encounter with Hibari, I walked to school alone. The pain in my head had grown into an aching throb that pounded against the side of my brain.

The streets were relatively quiet. I figured most kids were still oversleeping or, at the very least, eating breakfast. Tsuna-nii belonged in the first category. He had been fast asleep when I left the house, so I just left him there. I myself had woken up freakishly early this morning, no thanks to a certain bizarre dream, so I thought I'd take a quick stroll before school to clear my head.

It didn't work. In fact, at some point, I felt as if the pain had actually increased. As if every step I took left a pounding resonance against my skull and every sound I heard made my ears ring. It was almost like I was constantly hearing the sound of pounding against the pavement and a horrid wailing.

No, wait. Hang on. I think that might be actually wailing that I'm hearing…

Have you ever had those moments where you know something is behind you and you know you have to turn to see what it is, but you know you really don't want to? Well, I did. And I turned, very, very slowly.

Then, all of a sudden, I wished very much that I had not turned at all.

The large woman, or, at least, I think it's a very large woman. It could also be a very large man. I couldn't really tell at this distance. But I could tell that the said woman-esque figure saw me. It was almost as if I can feel those eyes key in onto me. The next thing I knew she, or maybe he, was barreling determinedly towards me at full speed.

I wanted to scream and cry at the same time. I ended up doing neither. Instead, I just ran as fast as I possibly can. It was then that my pursuer started to wail. Which, I would have ignored, had it not been for the fact that her wails were probably high pitched enough to crack a glass or two.

Unable to stand the noise, I covered my ears and turned for a split second to see just what on Earth was going on behind me, and in the split second, I slowed down and the lady (yes, she did indeed look like a lady at this point) caught up. She made a leap tackle for me before I can turn back around and we both tumbled to the ground.

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

Three minutes before my encounter with Hibari, my headache suddenly stopped. It was like a miracle descended from the heavens. Before this, it had been slowly ebbing to the point where I could ignore it, but three minutes before all hell broke loose, it suddenly disappeared.

I had blinked, stopped, tapped my head lightly several times, and nothing happened. No pain, no pounding, nothing. It was as if a heavy burden was suddenly lifted from my brain. I had considered it to be an immensely good sign, until three minutes later, when the demons of bad luck descended from the heavens and wrapped themselves around me.

You know, up until that point, I never really understood the expression, "if looks could kill". I guess it was just one of those things that never settled particularly well with me. Perhaps that was because I could never actually bring myself to believe that any living being, however angry or upset he or she may be, could ever muster an expression that could "kill", literally or figuratively. And I still don't believe it, in all honesty. But! I do believe in the phrase, "looks that promise death", which, looking at the prefect's face right now, was a perfect way to describe his expression.

Truth be told, ever since I had grudgingly accepted the fact that my family was somehow connected to an Italian mafia, I'd entertained the idea of death rather frequently. Sometimes, I would dream about it –about dying, I mean. Which might just be a sign that I should probably be seeking some sort of psychiatric therapy, but that was something neither here nor there at this point. The only thing that held any degree of relevance now was the way Hibari's eyes slowly narrowed as he stepped away from the clearing smoke.

"You," he addressed voice calm and smooth as ever, "ever since you've set foot in Namimori, you've been disturbing the peace. For that, I will bite you to death." Even as he spoke he raised and twisted his tonfas. They whistled through the air, leaving a graceful arc of light in their wake.

I made a face. He was such a showoff.

I contemplated my next line of actions. Do I say something? Run? Face him? Mock him first?

"Sawada-san!"

We both turned, Hibari and I. Behind us, a figure was stumbling around in the thinning smoke, coughing. "Sawada-san!" He called again, before addressing the prefect loudly, "Hibari! Leave Sawada-san alone! Your opponent is me!"

A chill ran through me as the boy continued to call out for me. Ondo-kun… In the blur of events, I had completely forgotten about him.

"Ho…?" Hibari mused and instantly, my attention snapped back to him. He was still facing on me, though his eyes were slightly turned towards Ondo-kun. "It seems that a prey has lost his way," his eyes turned back to me accompanied by a dark, arrogant smirk. "I'll be sure to clean that up as soon as I get through with you, Sawada Suzune."

I frowned. Ondo-kun…How do I save, Ondo-kun? Buy time for him to escape? That won't work. On my own, I can't hold Hibari for terribly long. Besides, the moment Ondo-kun sees me, he'll probably rush in to "help" me. Then I'll have to focus on saving his butt in addition to my own. Not a terribly exciting idea. Hmm, think, think, come on! What can I do?

Then it hit me like a bolt of lightning. I smirked. Despite what a nervous wreck I was at that moment, a slight tingle of mirth return to me the way I always do before making a smarty-pants remark. "Good plan, prefect, I like it," I nodded contemplatively as I spoke. I was diving head first into this now.

"Except for one thing, just one," I locked his gaze with mine and smiled, "when have you ever been able to beat me in a game of tag?" With that, I made the most provocative face at him I could possibly manage and ran.

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-


	8. Eenie Meenie Miney THREE

**A/N: Hello wonderful people. Thank you for the reviews last time! You're all brilliant! Here's chapter 7 like I promised! It took me days to get this done. :( This is an unprocessed first draft again, so sorry for any errors I made. With this, comes the epic conclusion to the tiger arc, so next time, we start something new. **

**Hehe. **

**In other news...**

**I don't know if you know have already seen this but dudes! A manga form of the last scene of chapter 6 is UP on Deviantart! I know, so exciting! Woooo! It's the scene with Suzune going, when have you ever beaten me in a game of tag. You should go check it out!**

**I titled it, "Hibari Kyoya vs Sawada Suzune". All you have to do is put that into the search bar on Deviantart dot com.**

**Chapter 7: Eenie, Meeny, Miney, Mo Three**

"Hibari is a stupid, stupid, slowpoke! Can't even catch a fragile little girl!" I turned around and shrieked at the top of my lungs. I would do this once in a while, just to make sure he would not lose the motivation to catch me.

Okay, I'll admit it. So I totally stole that line about the tag thing from _Bleach_, but man, I felt so cool saying it.

The good thing about Hibari, if there were ever such a thing as a "good" thing about him, was that he always charges ahead without thinking too much. His philosophy seemed to center around the fact that he believed himself to be stronger than anyone and everyone. For him, it was always beat 'em up period. Not a lot of thinking or planning or apprehension going on in that department. Which was convenient, considering that I really didn't need him to think too much into my motives for running away. I just needed to lead him away from Ondo-kun.

That being said, the only bad thing I can think of for this particular plan was that I'm not sure if I actually have the ability to outrun him. Sure, I'd done it before once or twice. But lots of unforeseen circumstances had been going in my favor then. Plus, I suspected that back then, he'd somewhat lost interest in the chase after a while. An event that I don't foresee happening any time soon, seeing as I keep turning to holler random insults at him at every five to ten second intervals.

Besides, I don't even have a game plan going on. All I can think to do at the moment is to run. I have no idea where to, no idea when to stop, not even a potential escape plan, in case something goes wrong. At one point, I had briefly entertained the idea of escaping through a window. But that was quickly shot down, seeing as there were no trees anywhere close to break my fall.

Yeah, things are not going terribly great right now. I'm a step above average when it comes to running, but I wasn't exactly the top of the food chain either. I do get winded and tired once in a while - like when I'm sprinting away from Hibari at full speed.

But even before my footsteps slowed, I knew the end was near. I just had this sinking feeling that something was about to go down. I think this is what they refer to as "woman's intuition".

I turned around to take a small peek at the situation behind. Then suddenly, I experienced the most bizarre out of body, reflex experience. I recall turning and being extremely alarmed and dropping promptly to the ground. The next thing I knew, something zoomed over me.

It wasn't until the tonfa lodged itself into the opposite wall that I fully comprehended what had happened. But as soon as I did, I rolled, as low and swiftly as possible to the left. It was not a moment too soon.

Hibari's tonfas whizzed past the place on the ground that I had occupied.

Good, so that's two near death experienced that I avoided in the same second. I almost felt like I should go home and say my thank you prayers or something.

From his place a few paces beside me, Hibari turned his eyes to me. Irritation flared in them. "You," he addressed, taking his time to fully turn to face me. "How long do you plan to keep up this meaningless game?"

I located my stun gun from somewhere in my pocket and made it let loose a terrifying crackle. "I don't know what you're talking about," I wheezed out in between breaths. "A game requires a minimum two players. If you really want to end the game then admit defeat and go home. I won't hold it against you." And despite how tired I was, I smiled a teasing smile.

The hallway we'd stopped at belonged to class 3-A of the third years. When I thundered through the hallway, most had heard the noise and had rushed over to the window to take a closer look. The teacher too, after trying in vain to remove his students from the window, decided to try to talk to us instead.

"Hey! You two! What on Earth are you -?" And that was about as far as he got. Hibari took a break from glaring at me to shoot a cold, hard glare at the teacher, who turned stopped abruptly in mid-speech. In the ensuing minutes, his face turned from red, to purple, to a little green, before settling at a defeated ashen gray. Several times, he looked as if he wanted to say something to protect his pride and authority as a teacher, but finally decided against it.

The air was filled with whispers, some inquisitive, some conversational, some worried. Students all stared as I stood facing the prefect. The seconds that ticked stretched indefinitely. The deadly crackle of my stun gun reminded me every second of the inherent danger that I was in.

In those moments, I was not a happy camper. My mind raced back and forth, simultaneously taking in and processing every bit of details in my surrounding and the possible things that I can do to utilize them. Nevertheless, I manage to crack a joke. "Aw, look, Hibari, you're scaring the children," I feigned a sad face and stuck out my tongue. "Who's disturbing the peace now, huh? Kids can't even learn in peace because of you."

I know, I know, provoking my attacker with crude jokes is probably not the smartest thing to be doing right now, but hey, I'm a stress joker. It's how I deal with things. Not the healthiest way to go about handling the situation and at some point I should probably stop. But you know what? This ain't that point yet.

"Enough," Hibari frowned, the smoothness of his tone never changed, yet his words carried a crisp edge that said quite plainly that he was finished with our conversations.

Using the wall as a quick kickoff, I jumped out of the way as he charged, tonfas whistling through the air. That was another good thing about Hibari. The guy practically attacked the same way ever time.

From somewhere in the classroom, I heard the teacher make a half restrained comment about footprints and the wall. Had I been more relaxed, I would have humored myself in explaining that while I was pretty awesome in pretty much everything, I have yet to find a way to defy physics enough to jump ridiculously high without the help of walls.

"KYAAAAA!"

I frowned as a shrill scream from a girl disrupted my concentration on the situation. Oh crap, did he hit me without my even realizing? Am I hurt? Am I bleeding? I don't feel any different. I have all my limbs right?

I patted myself all over while keeping a wary eye out for incoming danger. Okay. I'm okay. Arms, legs, head, I have everything I need. And I don't seem to be bleeding again so she's probably not screaming about me. But then why would she sound so terrified?

I gave Hibari a good long look to make sure that his attention is no longer on me before joining him in letting my gaze wander into the classroom.

The students, it seemed, had migrated from one side of the room to the other. No longer were Hibari and I the focal point of their attention. Instead, they seemed to have found something much more interesting to watch through the windows that faced the courtyard.

I listened keenly to their whispers. "A tiger," someone muttered.

"Why would something like that be here?" another one said.

Wait, what?

I almost didn't know whether or not I could believe them. A tiger? Is that what they said? Beside me, Hibari's frown darkened. Wordlessly, he strolled into the classroom. I hesitated for a brief moment before following. If a tiger is really on campus, then getting "bitten" to death by Hibari would be the least of my worries.

If Hibari noticed my presence behind him, he chose not to comment. Instead, he allowed the crowd of students to from the window to part faster than the red sea and took their positions to take an inspection of the situation himself. Allowing myself a few paces behind him in case I needed to make a quick getaway, I positioned myself someplace beside the window as well.

For a moment, I was stuck in between a state of nervousness and incredulousness. My eyes scanned the courtyard back and forth until I finally saw him. It appeared that the rumors were wrong. He wasn't just any tiger: he was a _huge_ tiger.

"This is an emergency announcement," a voice boomed overhead. I looked up as everyone else did at the PDA. "All students must return to the nearest classroom immediately," it continued. "All teachers must keep doors securely closed until further instructed."

A great unease rippled through the school as shuffling footsteps could be heard in the moments that ensued. When the teacher made sure everyone had been accounted for, he moved to close the doors. As he did, Hibari abruptly turned away from the window and strolled casually to exit the room.

"H-hey! Hibari! Where do you think you're going?" The teacher called out nervously as he quickly walked to block Hibari from walking out, "it's dangerous out there."

Hibari paused in mid stroll and gave the teacher an expressionless glance in reply. However, the details of his reply were entirely lost on me.

Outside in the courtyard, a lone figure had strolled into the open, calling as he went. From my place high above the ground, I heard a faint, "Sawada-san! Where are you?" But I didn't need to hear his voice to know just who it was that was out sunbathing with the tiger.

That idiot. Why didn't he return to the classroom? Didn't he hear the announcement?

I scanned the courtyard again. As I watched Ondo-kun ventured further outside, the tiger seemed to have vanished into thin air. But instead of hope, I felt a thick sense of dread grip my insides. Somehow, I knew that the tiger had keyed in onto Ondo-kun. Wherever it was, it was watching him.

I had to get him out of there. I gritted my teeth and the next thing I knew, I was bolting past the surprised students, the teacher, and a preoccupied Hibari. I threw open the door and charged towards the nearest set of stairs, blood pounding in my ears.

Please, please let me make it on time. Please. Please. Please.

And by some miracle, I did.

Ondo-kun was there when I arrived, tired and breathless. He was in the middle of the empty schoolyard, looking anxiously expectant at my direction when I arrived. I suspected that he'd caught the sound of my footsteps. I hadn't thought to make an effort to silence them.

"Sawada-san…" he said and made a move towards me.

Behind him, a blur of orange prowled across my field of vision and a low growl filled the empty air. I froze. Slowly, as if he were taking a casual stroll, the tiger prowled into the yard from behind the shrubberies. His tail swished back and forth as he watched Ondo-kun with unblinking eyes.

"Ondo-kun," I choked. Never in my life had I felt more helpless than in those moments. It was coming. I knew it was. The tiger was going to attack and I was too far away to be of any help.

But it was not me, but Ondo-kun who ended up calling, "watch out!" He spoke the words with such frantic urgency that for a full moment, I stood there looking at him, brain striving to think but failing to do so at the same time. What on earth was he talking about?

Then several things happened at once. "Sawada-san!" Ondo-kun called out again as he suddenly made a dash for me. He looked almost horrified, reaching out as if to wanting to pull me away from an apparent danger. At the same time, the tiger behind him, sank into a crouch and tensed to leap. And then, for the second time that day, something long and heavy whirled through the air. It struck the tiger against its head at full force and the tiger leapt backwards, startled and alarmed.

It was only when the metal object clattered loudly to the ground that I recognized what it was: a tonfa. Suddenly, the world made sense again. I whirled around, knowing even before I turned, the identity of the person standing behind me.

"You," Hibari addressed as he strolled towards the schoolyard, one tonfa in hand. His dark coat fluttered in the breeze and his free arm hung loosely by his side. His face was drawn into an expressionless stare as he approached; eyes focused only on the Bengal tiger growling a few yards away.

"If you continue to disturb the peace, I will bite you to death," he continued speaking to the animal as if he was being understood.

I stared, exasperation colored by expression. "You'll bite him to death?" I muttered, "um, not trying to be a smarty-pantsy here, but I'm pretty sure it's going to work the other way around."

The prefect did not spare me glance as he strode past me towards the tiger. "Ondo Hikaru," he said passively as he walked, "That is my prey. If you get in my way now, I will bite you to death as well."

Ondo-kun scowled but my attention was scarcely on the boy. Instead I watched the prefect carefully. I had no idea what to make of the situation. Was he trying to save Ondo-kun? Or is he just doing this because the tiger is harassing the school?

I had no idea what to make of the situation. It seemed like every single day in Namimori was working to top the last in terms of ridiculousness. The entire duration of my stay so far have been absolutely mindboggling.

Why on Earth would there be a tiger at our school? Why? We're not even located next to a zoo!

A low rumble escaped the tiger again as he shifted, watching Hibari walk unhurriedly towards him. The sunlight caught onto his striped orange fur and something on his neck glinted.

I frowned. Hang on… something on his neck glinted?

Then it hit me.

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

_7:58 AM, Earlier that morning_

"Get off me! I…can't… can't breathe…."

As a child, I was never terribly fond of hugs. Nevertheless, I got lots and lots of them, especially from my Aunt and Grandmother on my mother's side, who found their half-Asian niece slash granddaughter to be the cutest little thing in the world. So I develop this technique to help me wiggle out of hugs, which is to tell them that, "I can't breathe".

Well, in this instance, I actually really couldn't breathe. Not because I was being hugged, but because I was pinned to the ground by a woman – a very, very large woman.

Don't ask me how it happened. It just sort of did. One minute I was walking, minding my own business and the next, she saw me and charged. I tried to make a run for it, but she kind of jumped at me.

I almost wish you could see a picture of this. Heck, I wish I could see a picture of this. It must have been a sight to see. She just kind of lay there, squishing me to the ground and refusing to let me up. For a good while I'd even started to wonder if she was human because she kept swinging her head back and forth, screaming something I couldn't quite comprehend. It sounded like either a continuous shriek of distress or a very strange mating call.

"Get off me!" I cried again, this time with more conviction. I was actually running out of air. Okay, I know everyone dies someday, but death by suffocation from being pinned down by a fat lady is really not the way I want to go.

"NOOOO!" She shrieked again, finally turning her head to me. Suddenly her words became coherent. Apparently, she had been trying to speak to me, though now that she was looking down at me, I somehow became even more terrified. Up close, her eyes were big an wide and blue. Her blonde hair was in a state of disarray and her face was contorted into a look of horror. She spoke with exaggerated motions and a heavy accent, "watashi wa nihongo wa shabayraymasen!"

What?

"Shabayraymasen! Anata wa ay-go wa shabayraymasu desu ka?"

Then for the first time, I paused on my dying breaths to look at her. I mean, I truly looked at her, taking in and processing every detail. Her pronunciation was absolutely beyond help and her grammar was way off. But I understood what she had been trying to convey. She didn't speak Japanese, so she was wondering if I spoke English.

Fortunately for her, I did. So the first thing I managed to wheeze in English was, "ma'am, ma'am, I'm going to… need you to please stop screaming… and get off me. Please… I'm…dying..."

"Oh!" The lady said in response, relieve practically flooded her eyes as she regarded me. "Oh, you speak English."

"Yes…" I gasped, "native tongue… of sorts… please… get off."

"Oh!" Finally understanding and realization saturated her expression. With some effort, she picked herself up off the ground, allowing me to take in a big gulp of oxygen. I don't think I've ever been happier to breathe.

"I'm so sorry," she apologized as I got up shakily from the ground. "I'm in such a pickle and I didn't know what to do because I don't speak very much Japanese. Then I saw you and I saw the color of your hair and I hoped you would know so I tried to get to you before I lost sight of you, but I tripped and oh, I'm so sorry!"

"It's alright, I'll try not to sue," I responded. "Is there something I can help you with?"

At this, the lady began to sniffle. "Oh, it's terrible! I was on vacation with my baby. He was born here so I thought it would be culturally significant to him if I brought him back to visit and he's gone!" She began to wail, "oh, what do I do?"

"Have you gone to the police?" I offered.

She shook her head. "I thought I'd try calling for him first," she sniffed, "he's shy."

I resisted the urge to sigh. "Okay, I'll take you to the police station, you can work it out with them. They'll help you, I promise."

So we ended up going to the police, to whom Mrs. Mackle, that was her name, provided the description that her baby was named, "Toranosuke". He looked adorable with adorable hazel eyes and was wearing orange with black stripes. He was about three years old and likes to eat hamburgers.

Then I let the police take over and went to school.

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

_Presently_

"His name is Toranosuke, he's three years old, adorably soft, and has adorable hazel eyes."

When I saw a collar glint, a lot of things fell into place for me.

Mrs. Mackle's voice echoed over and over again in my head. Orange with red stripes, adorable soft, hazel eyes, I had assumed that they were odd descriptions for a child. In the Japanese culture, names will sometimes include animals such as tigers or dragons. Toranosuke, Ryuunosuke, names like that aren't super uncommon. So when she said her baby was named, "Tora"nosuke, I had no idea it would be an actual "tora", which meant tiger in Japanese. And she never mentioned that she had a tiger on the loose, so you can see how I might have a problem there.

"He's very friendly once you get to know him," I remembered having to translate for her. "But he's shy at first, so you'll have to approach slowly, with caution."

I sighed and walked to Ondo-kun. This has just been such a great day. Drawing a deep breath, I called out, "Hibari Kyoya!"

The Prefect turned. I took this opportunity to push Ondo-kun at him and run ahead of him. In front of me, Toranosuke growled and tensed. I froze in place. "Let me handle this and no one will need to get hurt. Hold on to Ondo-kun please and don't let him do anything stupid," I instructed and half looked over my shoulder with a small smile. "Take care good of him."

Then I turned and made a move towards the tiger.

However scary and self-sacrificial that scene might have looked to any outsider, my intentions were really to just go to the tiger and calm him down. Probably tell him, "let's go eat hamburgers", or something like that.

I know the tiger wouldn't attack me, but I guess others didn't? Which, I'm guessing was the primary reason why the next series of events happened as they did.

First, there was the sound of a gunshot in the distance and somewhere in the building behind me, several people screamed in panic. I was debating on whether or not to turn to check out what kind of mess just broke out behind me, when I heard the sound of glass shattering. Then the sounds of rapid footsteps ensued and a familiar war-cry accompanied them. They were faint at first, then grew louder as the footsteps approached.

It sounded like someone was saying a continuous, "raaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!"

No-good Tsuna?!" Ondo-kun exclaimed incredulously and I whirled around alarmed.

Sure enough, Tsuna-nii was charging at me at full speed, in his boxers, with a wildly determined look on his face.

"Rahh! I'll save Suzune with my dying will."

Wait, wait, hang on one moment. What?

I let out somewhat of a choked cry as I watched Tsuna-nii charge past me, shoving me aside into his trial of dust storm as he did.

I fell to the ground and coughed, "Tsuna-nii, wait!"

It was too late. I watched everything happen in slow motion, almost. Tsuna-nii was charging at the tiger. The tiger looked unsure and alarmed. Tsuna-nii threw a punch. The tiger's body flew back with the force of the blow.

It was then that out of the corner of my eye, I noticed another entity coming from the side gate of the school. It was charging towards us at an insanely inhuman speed, kicking up another trail of dust clouds in its wake.

I barely had time to scramble out of the way as it, she, arrived at the scene wailing one word, "Toranosuke!"

Then with a grunt, Mrs. Mackle from Little Rock, Arkansas, took a swing at Tsuna-nii so hard that he went soaring through the air and crashed into a nearby tree.

"How dare you hurt my baby!" She shrieked before turning to the tiger and cooing, "oh, my sweet, sweet angel, Mama is sorry, Mama loves! Are you okay?"

Hibari narrowed his eyes and raised a tonfa, whether to attack or defend from the strange woman I couldn't say. Beside him, Ondo-kun stared wide-eyed, speechless and unmoving. A wave of tiredness washed over me.

"Hi Mrs. Mackle," I began. "Good to see you again."

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

The afternoon sun streamed through the passing clouds, casting beams of citrus colored light down onto the quiet grounds below. I stood there watching as Mrs. Mackle left with the large, Bengal tiger, flanked on each side by a nervous police officer.

"Sawada-san," Ondo-kun called softly. I turned to see him approach. "Sorry for causing you so much trouble today. Thank you for helping me, in everything. It was really cool hearing you speak English so fluently."

I turned to him, calm and weary now that the storm has mostly blown over. "Thanks," I smiled, "sorry I shoved you back there."

Ondo-kun shook his head. "It's okay, you really saved me back there. It was really brave of you to go towards the tiger like that. I was terrified"

I opened my mouth to reply.

"You two, you're crowding, aren't you?" Hibari's baritone interrupted me. He looked to us, eyes dangerously narrowed, but strangely, I felt little malice emanating from him.

I regarded him inquisitively. Hibari was another case altogether. Something about his behavior today, however subtle, almost led me to question my perception of his character. Almost. There were, of course, plenty of other explanations to explain his behavior during the tiger scare.

Mentally, I shook my head to clear any shred of questions that popped up. Today was tiring and thinking deeply was beginning to hurt my head. So I slipped into the comfort of witting sarcasm, something I knew better than anything else.

"We'll, I would hardly call two people a crowd, but if it makes you feel any better, we're not crowding you, we're simply crowding next to you."

A hint of irritation colored Hibari's face and I quickly backpedaled. I've had enough excitement for one day. "Give it a rest, Prefect, today was tiring enough as it is," I said and turned to Ondo-kun. "Ondo-kun, you should go back first and tell everyone we're alright. I'll drag my cousin back as soon as I wake him up."

Ondo-kun gave me a small nod and smiled. "Yeah, come back soon."

When Ondo-kun took off running towards the buildings, I walked to where my cousin lay unconscious by the tree.

Eight years ago, he backed away from me as we stood facing a probably harmless snake. Now he pushes me aside and charged straight at a full-grown tiger. It was harmless, of course. Mrs. Mackle said it was her dearest pet and would never bite a soul, but no one beside myself knew that.

I looked at him, just as I did all those years ago and felt a small smile spread across my face. And inside me, a crack mended itself, sealing up the same way it had split open all those years ago. Looks like times are changing after all, cool, that was good to know.

I nodded to myself as I gave Tsuna-nii's unconscious form a small poke. Damn, Mrs. Mackle sure packs a good punch. I would not want to mess with her.

"You okay, Tsuna-nii?" I asked as I poked him again, "rise and shine!"

"Ugh…" Tsuna-nii winced and stirred. Slowly, he opened his eyes and propped himself up, rubbing the back of his head as he did. "Suzune?" He asked looking around, "and… Hyiiiiiiiiiii! Hibari-san!"

Hibari, who had been about to leave, turned and glanced at my cousin. "Sawada Tsunayoshi," he addressed. "You are violating the dress code. If you continue to walk around in this shameless manner, I will bite you to death."

Tsuna-nii flailed his arms like he was so scared he had no idea what to do with himself. "Y-yes! I'll get dressed immediately!"

I snorted at that and Hibari's eyes found mine. He hesitated for a brewing moment before narrowing his eyes and speaking a toneless warning. "Sawada Suzune, if you ever get between me and my prey again, I will not hesitate to bite you to death."

"Yeah, yeah," I answered with a sigh.

-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-

_8:00 PM that night_

"Come hither, lassie," Reborn wheezed in his fortuneteller costume.

I just stared at him through the bottom of my raised glass of water and continued to drink in an orderly fashion.

"Have you encountered many an exotic beasts today?" He continued at my silence. A knowing smirk danced on his lips as he watched me.

I lowered my glass and took a suspicious breath. "You arranged that somehow, didn't you?"

"I did nothing except peak through the eye of fate to see what the ordinary cannot," he hummed.

"Give it up, Suzune," Tsuna-nii sighed as he passed me on the way out of the kitchen. "It's a lost cause."

That was probably true.

So I let it go and followed Tsuna-nii out into the hallway.

He paid me little mind as he headed up the stair and rubbed the back of his head. I, however, paused at the bottom of the staircase.

"Onii-chan," I called out and Tsuna-nii almost slipped.

"Ehhh?" He turned to me.

I gave him a long, considering look. "You were pretty cool out there today. I think I might have just gained back some long lost respected for you."

His eyes went as wide as our dinner plate. "Ehhh?" He said again.

I smirked, not bothering to enlighten him further. "But I'm not going to give up teasing you though, old habits die hard."

Shooting him a wink, I turned and headed back to the kitchen.

Besides, watching him twitch after every sentence is just so much fun.

**-– (*-*) – (-.-) – (O.O) – (T-T) – (*O*) –-**


End file.
